BOSTON — A former mayor from Haiti is ready to move on trial Monday after government say he lied on his visa utility about committing rights abuses in his nation.
Jean Morose Viliena, who has been residing simply north of Boston within the town of Malden, Massachusetts, used to be indicted in 2023 on 3 counts of visa fraud. Government stated he wrote on his utility that he had now not “ordered, performed or materially assisted in extrajudicial and political killings and different acts of violence towards the Haitian other folks.”
However federal prosecutors allege that whilst mayor of town of Les Irois, a group of about 22,000 on Haiti’s western tip, Viliena used to be concerned about acts of violence towards political foes.
In 2007, prosecutors stated, he led a bunch of his allies to the house of a political opponent, the place he and his friends shot and killed the opponent’s more youthful brother, then smashed his cranium with a rock.
Prosecutors additionally allege that during 2008, Viliena and his allies went armed with weapons, machetes, selections and sledgehammers to close down a group radio station that he adversarial. Government stated he pistol-whipped and punched a person and ordered an affiliate to shoot and kill the person and someone else.
Each survived, however probably the most males misplaced a leg and the opposite used to be blinded in a single eye.
Viliena used to be discovered liable by means of an American jury in a civil trial in 2023 within the killing and the 2 tried killings and assessed $15.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages.
The lawsuit used to be filed by means of the San Francisco-based Heart for Justice and Responsibility on behalf of David Boniface, Juders Ysemé and Nissage Martyr in Boston in 2017. Nissage Martyr died and his son, Nissandère Martyr, changed him as a plaintiff.
The lawsuit used to be filed below the Torture Sufferer Coverage Act of 1991, which permits proceedings to be filed within the U.S. towards overseas officers over allegations of wrongdoing of their hometown if all prison avenues of their nation were exhausted.
The middle often known as at the State Division, the U.S. Embassy in Haiti and the Inter-American Courtroom of Human Rights to paintings with Haiti’s govt to verify the security in their shoppers and members of the family, who’ve been subjected to retaliation and intimidation.
Jason Benzaken, lead recommend for Villena, stated his consumer now “has the chance to provide proof of his innocence.”
“Mr. Viliena is blameless of the costs towards him and we’re having a look ahead to the chance to turn out this,” Benzaken stated.
Boniface, Ysemé and Martyr are living in hiding and stated in statements Wednesday that whilst proud of Viliena’s arrest, they’re involved in their households.
Martyr’s mom and sisters nonetheless are living in Les Irois.
