U.S. deports ex-paramilitary leader of Haiti

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Former paramilitary leader Emmanuel Constant 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.

Constant did not say anything as he was placed into a police vehicle, where one officer held a cellphone up to Constant’s ear so he could talk to an unidentified person before he was taken away for questioning.

Constant was among 24 deported migrants who landed in Port-auPrince, the fourth such flight since the COVID-19 pandemic began, said Jean Negot Bonheur Delva, director of Haiti’s migration office.

Some criticized his deportation and worried whether he would be held accountable for any of the charges he faces. Reed Brody, an attorney for Human Rights Watch known as the “dictator hunter,” told The Associated Press 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 epitomize the impunity with which people have committed murder in Haiti for so long.”

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 after President Jean-bertrand Aristide’s presidency was toppled in 1991. They allege that between 1991 and 1994, Constant’s group terrorized and slaughtered at least 3,000 slum dwellers loyal to Aristide.

According to the San Francisco-based Center for Justice & Accountability, Constant had pictures of mutilated victims and his group performed facial scalpings and displayed them.