An ex-soldier admitted on Thursday that he took part in the attack on the National Palace in a coup attempt, saying fellow conspirators included a former army colonel, and two former police chiefs who fled the country after a previous alleged coup plot in October 2000.

Former FAD'H sergeant, Pierre Richardson, said he attended meetings in the Dominican capital of Santo Domingo to plan the attack along with Guy Philippe, former police chief of the northern city of Cap-Haitien, and Jean-Jacques Nau, former police chief of the Delmas suburb of Port-au-Prince.

According to the police, Richardson, who has a bullet wound in his leg after Monday's assault on the presidential palace, had been stopped on a road near the border with the neighbouring Dominican Republic. When apprehended by police, he was said to have been carrying a wad of cash and an M16 rifle. The police say that Richardson had been involved in the July 28 attacks on the national Police Academy and three police stations, which left five dead and 14 wounded. Apparently, he later fled to Dominican Republic where he was granted temporary residence this month.

At a press conference at the main Port-au-Prince police station, Richardson said 23 or 24 attackers stormed the palace in an attempt to oust President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. "It was a coup d'etat," Richardson said. "The plan was to enter the National Palace."

Guy François

Reuters reports police chief Dady Simeon saying that François was arrested at Port-au-Prince International Airport late on Wednesday as he attempted to board a flight bound for Venezuela. Other news agencies report that François was arrested in Port-au-Prince while driving a car with Dominican license plates. The police have not said what charges he faces. François' daughter, speaking to reporters, denied that François had any involvement in the attacks, and said he was at home on Sunday night.

Guy Philippe

Philippe, who is also an ex-soldier who had been assigned to the police force that replaced the army, sought refuge in Dominican Republic in October 2000 along with seven others accused of plotting a coup. (Details of the October 2000 plot appeared in the weekly newspaper, Haiti Progres, at that time. Apparently, Philippe, Nau, and other former police chiefs who had been fired from the force, together with former soldiers and civilians, had two meetings at the private residence of a US military attaché in Haiti, a certain Major Douyon, on October 8 and October 11 2000. Also present or at least expected, according to an unconfirmed report by Radio Kiskeya on October 24 2000, was the US chargé d'affaires, Leslie Alexander. When the Haitian government found out about the meetings, Philippe, Nau and six other police chiefs fled to the Dominican Republic, where they applied for political asylum.)

Philippe later moved to Ecuador, but he flew back to Dominican Republic two weeks before last Monday's assault, Dominican officials said. After the attack, he returned to Ecuador, where on Thursday he was being held by immigration police in Quito while he appealed a government decision to deport him to Panama, the country from which his flight had arrived. Haitian government officials have asked Ecuador to extradite him. Philippe, who had phoned Radio Carnival in Miami from the Dominican Republic to deny involvement, meanwhile told reporters in Quito, "How am I going to mobilise troops? By remote control?"

Five attackers killed

Richardson's revelations contradict the accusations of opposition leaders who claim the government staged the attack as a pretext to crack down on dissent. In the days following the attempted coup, government supporters have set fire to Convergence party offices and houses belonging to Convergence party leaders. But the self-confessed attempted putschist also said he did not think any member of the opposition coalition, the Democratic Convergence, had participated in planning the failed coup.

Meanwhile, an unconfirmed report from a foreign resident in Port-au-Prince claims that President Aristide's home in the suburb of Tabarre, some distance away from the National Palace, was shot at during Sunday night's coup attempt. An email message contained the following section, "Very early in the morning (around 2:00 am) on December 17, 2001 armed gunmen, who were not dressed as troops, shot at the home of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Although the gunmen did not try to invade the home of the President, they did open fire while he was home with his wife Mildred and family. The President and his family were scared, (but) unharmed (and) then taken to safety by the Haitian police. ..........."