Former paramilitary deported to Haiti

A former paramilitary leader was deported from the U.S. on Tuesday and arrested as soon as he landed in Haiti, where he faces murder and torture charges stemming from killings committed during the political upheaval of the 1990s that involved the U.S. government.

Emmanuel Constant was among 24 deported migrants who landed in the capital of Port-au-Prince, the fourth such flight since the COVID-19 pandemic began, according to Haitian Government officials.

Human rights groups have accused Constant of killing, raping and torturing Haitians when he became leader of the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (Fraph) after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's presidency was toppled in 1991.

They allege that between 1991 and 1994, the group that Constant led terrorized and slaughtered at least 3,000 shanty town-dwellers loyal to Aristide.

According to the San Francisco-based Center for Justice & Accountability, Constant had pictures of mutilated victims in his office.

When Aristide returned to power in 1994 with help from the U.S. military, Constant fled to the Dominican Republic and then entered the U.S. on Christmas Eve.

He was ordered deported in 1995 but allowed to remain in the U.S. because of instability in Haiti. In 2000, Constant was convicted in absentia in Haiti following a trial for the 1994 massacre in Raboteau, a shantytown in the northern coastal town of Gonaives where Aristide supporters were killed.

Constant kept a low profile while in the U.S. and lived with relatives in Queens, New York, until he was arrested in 2006 and later found guilty of fraud and grand larceny. In October 2008, he was sentenced at least 12 years in prison for his role in a $1.7 million mortgage fraud scheme.

Constant has repeatedly alleged that he was on the CIA's payroll and that he is a scapegoat and would be killed upon his return to Haiti.

Haitian officials have criticized the continued deportations during the coronavirus pandemic, saying the U.S. should halt all repatriations until the health crisis eases.

(Image Credit Pixabay)