Ex-Haitian Dictator 'Baby Doc' Duvalier Led Out of Hotel By Police

Jan. 18, 2011— -- Just days after his surprise return to Haiti, former dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier was led out of a Port-au-Prince hotel by heavily armed police.

It remains unclear whether he will simply be questioned or if he will ultimately be charged with crimes allegedly committed during a brutal regime that ended with his ouster 25 years ago.

Before the police arrived at the hotel, a government official told ABC News the one-time dictator would be arrested for "heinous crimes against the Haitian people."

Armed policemen, a judge and the country's senior prosecutor arrived at the Karibe Hotel in Petionville, where Duvalier has remained holed up since his return from French exile on Sunday. Hours later police led him out of the hotel.

He was not handcuffed but led from the building by armed officers into a waiting SUV that rushed him directly to a courthouse.

Duvalier, 59, was calm and did not say anything as he got into the truck. Asked by journalists if he was being arrested, his longtime companion Veronique Roy, laughed but said nothing, according to the Associated Press.

Outside the hotel, some spectators applauded his arrest while others jeered.

Duvalier supporters, however, quickly erected roadblocks on the road to the courthouse, but the car made it to the courthouse and the former dictator was escorted inside.

In order to file charges, the prosecutor needs to make a case to an investigating magistrate who opens a formal investigation.

"That the prosecutor met him at the hotel and then took him directly to the courthouse could indicate they're taking the first step to filing charges," said Reed Brody, a lawyer for Human Rights Watch, who worked as a prosecutor in Haiti in the 1990s.

"We certainly hope it means he's brought to trial and given a fair trial. Haitians have a right to see to the man accused of thousands of political killings and torture brought to justice. Some might say with all Haiti's problems, why prosecute Duvalier? But doing so, shows that the state is capable of the most basic of tasks. It's hard to tell gangs not to go looting, if a mass murderer is treated like a dignitary and stays at hotel," Brody said.