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[haitiwebs]

MIAMI - A former senior Haitian police official was acquitted Friday of charges he took bribes to let Colombian drug lords move cocaine through the island nation and into the United States.

Evintz Brillant, 33, was cleared of conspiracy.

Three other Haitian police officials ? including the former national police director and the former police chief at the Port-au-Prince airport ? have pleaded guilty in an investigation into what authorities said was a network of corrupt public officials who had been bought off by drug smugglers.

The graft took place during the government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was ousted under U.S. pressure in 2004 and is living in exile in South Africa. He has not been charged or directly implicated in drug trafficking.

Brillant, once chief of Haiti's anti-narcotics unit, was accused of taking thousands of dollars in payoffs to let tons of cocaine move through Haiti to the United States, Europe and elsewhere. Many of the shipments were put on U.S.-bound flights at Haiti's airport in the capital of Port-au-Prince, prosecutors said.

Brillant's lawyer, Howard Schumacher, said Brillant was an honest police officer.

"Evintz Brillant was making arrests. He was making seizures. But what he wasn't doing was going along with the team plan," the attorney said.

The lawyer also raised questions about the credibility of the former officials who testified against Brillant in hopes of gaining immunity or a reduced prison sentence.

Brillant was not immediately released from jail because his immigration status had to be determined. Schumacher said he could ask for asylum in the United States or return to Haiti.