Louis-Jodel Chamblain, one of the rebels who had conviction overturned

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - Haiti's Supreme Court has overturned the convictions of 38 army and paramilitary leaders who were sentenced to life in prison for their roles in mass slayings during the 1994 coup, human rights groups said yesterday.

The men had been tried and sentenced in their absence in 2000 on charges ranging from criminal conspiracy to torture and murder for an April 1994 dawn raid on Raboteau, a seaside shantytown in northwest Gonaives. Because many of the convicted were living in exile, less than half ever served a prison sentence. It was not clear how many were still jailed.

"The trial was annulled, we suppose it was on a technicality," said Jean-Claude Bajeux from the Ecumenical Centre for Human Rights. The Supreme Court has yet to make the decision available in its entirety, he said.

Pierre Esperance, director of the National Coalition of Haitian Rights, also confirmed the April 21 decision but couldn't immediately provide more details.

The decision drew the ire of supporters of former President Jean-Bertand Aristide, who was ousted for the second time amid an armed rebellion in February last year by some of the same people convicted in the 1994 killings.

The Raboteau slayings were part of a series of attacks to erode support for Aristide, a charismatic slum priest who became Haiti's first democratically elected leader in February 1991. The army ousted him in September 1991, and he returned to power in the wake of a US intervention three years later.

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