Ex-Haiti dictator Duvalier dies

Haitian officials confirmed on Saturday that the country's former dictator had died of a heart attack at his home outside of the capital city Port-au-Prince.

Jean-Claude Duvalier rose to power in 1971 at the age of 19, when his father, Francois, suddenly passed away. He was widely known as "Baby Doc," a nickname passed down from his father "Papa Doc" who had worked as a physician before taking power in 1957.

Like his father, Jean-Claude ruled with an iron fist during his 15 years in power. Both regimes made use of secret police known as the Tonton Macoutes to silence tens of thousands of dissidents.

An uprising drove Duvalier and his wife, Michele Bennett, from the Caribbean nation in 1986. The former dictator spent next 25 years in exile in France, first returning to Haiti in 2011 in what he described as a gesture of solidarity after a powerful earthquake devastated the country the previous year.

Following briefly being detained for corruption and theft, Duvalier spent the remainder of his life in his homeland without facing jail time.

Alleged victims of his regime attempted to appeal a decision by a Haitian court which had ruled that it was no longer possible to try the former dictator due to the country's statute of limitations.

During an appearance in court in 2013, Duvalier denied wrongdoing and claimed that he had always ensured justice had been served.

kms/bw (AP, Reuters)