A United Nations report accuses Haiti's police officers of using excessive force, and says some may have been involved in the deaths of nine people.
The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, along with the U.N. mission in Port-au-Prince, released the report Tuesday. It deals with six incidents between October 2010 and June 2011 and implicate about 20 officers.
The U.N. says human rights officials with its Haiti mission regularly receive and investigate allegations of illegal killings involving the police.
The report says there is reason to suspect the deaths of nine people may have been the result of illegal use of force by police. It says it is "urgent" that the Haitian government take action to prevent extrajudicial or summary and arbitrary killings.
It also calls for rapid and effective investigations when those kinds of deaths occur.
The report says while Haiti generally does investigate such occurrences, no investigation has led to a criminal conviction. It says witnesses are often afraid of testifying at trials, and in some cases police officers were back on the job before the investigation had even concluded.
Some information for this report was provided by AP and AFP.
