Last Updated on June 24, 2020, 9:41 AM AST by Anthony Morris
Former paramilitary leader Emmanuel Constant was extradited from the U.S. on Tuesday and captured as soon as he arrived in Haiti, where he encounters murder and torture charges deriving from killings perpetrated throughout the political upheaval of the 1990s that included the U.S. government.
Constant did not say anything as he was settled into a police transportation, where one officer held a cellphone up to Constant’s ear so he could talk to an anonymous person before he was driven away for interrogation.
Constant was among 24 exiled migrants who arrived in the capital of Port-au-Prince, the fourth before-mentioned flight since the COVID-19 pandemic began, said director of Haiti’s migration office Jean Negot Bonheur Delva, .
Some scrutinised his extradition and despaired whether he would be retained responsible for any of the charges he faces. Reed Brody, an attorney-at-law for Human Rights Watch acknowledged as the “dictator hunter,” told The Associated Press in telephonice conversation that Constant should be prosecuted somewhere.
“The worst solution for Haitians would be to have somebody like ‘Toto’ Constant with so much blood on his hands walking around,” he said. “It would just compress the exception with which people have committed murder in Haiti for so long.”
Human rights groups have denounced Constant of killing, raping and torturing Haitians when he became leader of the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s presidency was toppled in 1991. They claim that between 1991 and 1994, the organisation that Constant led threatened and murdered at least 3,000 slum residents true to Aristide.
As per the San Francisco-based Center for Justice & Accountability, Constant had photographs of mangled victims in his office and his group would perform facial scalpings and illustrate them.
He was ordered extradition in 1995 but was permitted to reside in the U.S. because of uncertainty in Haiti. In 2000, Constant was sentenced in absentia in Haiti following a trial for the 1994 carnage in Raboteau, a shantytown in the northerly coastal town of Gonaives where Aristide followers were murdered.
Constant kept a low profile while in the U.S. and lived with his family friends in Queens, New York, until he was caught in 2006 and later found guilty of deception and high crime. In October 2008, he was convicted at least 12 years in jail for his invovlement in a $1.7 million mortgage fraud scheme.
Constant has frequently alleged that he was on the CIA’s payroll and that he is a scapegoat and would be killed upon his return to Haiti.
There were no demonstrators or followers when he arrived in Port-au-Prince or when he was taken to a jail cell presently afterward. His attorney-at-law, Ronaldo Saint-Louis, told journalists that Constant was being held illegally.
“This is a country of injustice. We are going to fight for his right to be released,” he said.
Anthony Morris covers stories related to politics and regional developments. His in-depth reporting about governance and reforms makes him stand out in regional journalism, with a deep analysis of political trends and their impact on Caribbean communities.
