Two American customs officers murdered at Las Matas

LAS MATAS. On 6 August 1906, two American customs officers, Messrs. Milbourn and Thurstan, were assassinated at Las Matas. Two Dominican citizens, pointed out by the police of their own country as the authors of this crime, who had crossed the frontier to seek in Haiti impunity for the two murders of which they had made themselves guilty, were arrested, on the representations of the Dominican government, and lodged in the prisons of Port-au-Prince. The cabinet of Santo-Domingo presented through diplomatic channels to the Haitian government a request for extradition against the two prisoners. The Haitian government, although no extradition treaty exists between the two governments, but inspired by the interest that all peoples have in seeing that crimes and offences of a nature to harm public morality and to endanger the very existence of civil society do not remain unpunished, judged that it could grant the extradition requested, remarking nevertheless to the Dominican Government that it was by way of reciprocity (General Statement of the situation of 1907).

Rouzier tells this under the entry LAS MATAS.