PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti (CMC) — An investigating judge has issued an arrest warrant for former President Jean Bertrand Aristide after he failed to comply with a summons to appear at the magistrate’s office.

Aristide was due to appear before Judge Lamarre Belizaire to answer charges relating to acts of corruption, money laundering, misappropriation of public funds, criminal conspiracy, among other accusations.

Aristide and several of his former colleagues have been accused of embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars from the State through his organisation, Aristide for Democracy Foundation, and other organisations.

“The judge was at his office waiting for Mr Aristide to appear, he never saw him, while other allies of the former president have been commenting about the content of the warrant on the air, which means hey are in possession of the document,” an official at the Judicial Palace told the Port au Prince-based Haitian Caribbean News Network.

Aristide, a former Roman Catholic priest, and his colleagues including Mirlande Liberus, Yvon Neptune, Jean Nesty Lucien and Gustave Faubert, have also been banned from leaving the country.

Judge Belizaire has refused to comment on the case for “legal and ethical reasons”.