Haitian police, under the authority of the capital’s top prosecutor, arrested and detained on Friday a US citizen accused of abusing children housed in an orphanage he founded years ago in the Caribbean country, officials say.
Michael Karl Geilenfeld, 62, was handcuffed at the Saint Joseph orphanage in the Delmas district and taken into police custody on Friday behind a police pickup truck along with one of his aides, Lamarre Williams, who had been working for Geilenfeld for about six years.
The Port-au-Prince’s top prosecutor, Kerson Charles Darius, said Geilenfeld, who had been the object of numerous complaints for child abuse and other criminal activities, will be interrogated and prosecuted on crimes against minors and criminal conspiracy charges.
“Several people have filed complaints about Mr Geilenfeld and about what is going on in this place,” Darius told the Haitian-Caribbean News Network (HCNN) on Friday as he left the orphanage where Geilenfeld was arrested.
“We will proceed with the case according to the provisions of the law and all the rights of Mr Geilenfeld and others involved will be respected,” said Darius.
Police officers from the Child protection Unit, accompanied by UN peacekeepers, tried in vain, earlier this year, to close the orphanage and place the boys under the direct authority of the government-run Social Welfare and Research Institute, known as IBSR, following a decision by relevant authorities.
Geilenfeld’s lawyer, Alain Lemithe, called his client’s arrest and detention illegal, as he challenged allegations of wrongdoing on the part of the US orphanage founder.
Geilenfeld will be first interrogated by the prosecutor or his auxiliaries who will gather preliminary information, before transferring the case to an investigating judge for further inquiry in a process that may take months.
