PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) – A rebel leader wanted for allegedly directing attacks on police stations said he has been patrolling streets near the Haitian capital for weeks and police have not tried to stop him.

Remissainthe Ravix, a former army sergeant who helped lead the February 2004 rebellion that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was widely believed to have gone in hiding last month, shortly before interim Justice Minister Bernard Gousse announced police were looking for him.

Gousse accused Ravix of directing attacks on police stations after orchestrating the seizure of Aristide’s abandoned residence outside the capital of Port-au-Prince.

The seizure last month triggered a two-day standoff with UN peacekeepers, who eventually forced their way inside and persuaded the rebels to leave the residence unarmed. Rebels in other parts of Haiti staged a string of attacks on police stations hours later.

Journalists and others had been unable to locate Ravix in the weeks following the standoff. But he surfaced yesterday in an apartment outside Port-au-Prince where he commands a group of rebels, leading them on street patrols of the area.

He denied ever going into hiding, insisting he patrols the streets with impunity “because I have done nothing wrong”.

“We haven’t had any problems with the police,” Ravix told The Associated Press from behind his desk, his guns placed on a chair beside him. “If we arrest a thief, we give him to the police. We have no place to keep him.”

Gousse and police spokeswoman Gessy Coicou refused to discuss Ravix’s claims.

Ravix – like many rebels who led the three-week revolt that ended with Aristide’s Feb 29 ouster – belonged to the army that Aristide disbanded in 1995, shortly after the US-led intervention that restored him to power following the 1991 coup that first ousted him.

Partly as an attempt to persuade the former soldiers to disarm, the US-backed interim government has started paying them financial compensation and has promised to help them find jobs. Some 1,200 former soldiers have been paid.

Damian Onses-Cardona, a spokesman for the 7,400-member UN peacekeeping force, declined to comment on the situation with Ravix, saying it was a matter for Haitian police to resolve.