World Notes HAITI

The outlook for fair elections in Haiti grew darker last week with the murder of a presidential candidate, apparently by plainclothes police. Lawyer Yves Volel, 54, was shot in the head in front of police headquarters in Port-au- , Prince as he protested the plight of political prisoners held without charges. Journalists on the scene identified his attackers as detectives in the police force's notorious criminal-research bureau.

Volel became the second murder victim in Haiti's presidential race, the first to be held since three decades of Duvalier rule ended last year. In August, Louis Eugene Athis was hacked to death by peasants who had been wrongfully informed by local police that the candidate was a Communist. Though neither victim was a front runner in a field of more than 30 candidates, some observers suspected that the murders were an attempt by old-guard Duvalierists to hold on to power.