Guy Philippe, the former Haitian police commander, politician and rebel who staged a coup against his country’s then-president in 2004 and served six years in a U.S. federal prison for money laundering, was deported to Haiti on Thursday, according to one of his lawyers. in Haiti, Emmanuel Jeanty.
The return of Philippe, 55, has fueled concerns that it could add to turmoil in the Caribbean country, already in a fragile state due to political instability and rising killings as heavily armed gangs try to quell a gang-led vigilante citizens. movement.
It was not immediately clear what the authorities’ plans were for managing Mr. Philippe’s potentially disruptive presence in Haiti.
Upon arriving at Port-au-Prince airport, where local media reported that some of his supporters had seen a demonstration, Mr. Philippe was taken by Haitian authorities to the headquarters of the Judicial Police Department, responsible for investigating the crimes.
Mr Jeanty said he and a colleague saw Mr Philippe briefly at the station on Thursday. He said he did not know why Mr Philippe remained there until Thursday afternoon.
“Guy Philippe is a Haitian citizen,” Mr. Jeanty said in a telephone interview. “And after the punishment, he returned to his country. I suppose everyone, after spending time in prison, wants to go home. “He’s waiting to come home and see his family.”
A police spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.
Philippe was one of the leaders of the 2004 coup that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. He then unsuccessfully attempted to run for president in 2006, but won election to the Haitian Senate in 2016.
Something of a populist hero, particularly in his native southwestern region, Philippe has been dogged by allegations of human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings while he was a senior police officer.
In 2005, Philippe was secretly indicted by a federal grand jury in the United States who accused him of drug trafficking from Colombia to Haiti and money laundering. I’ve been evading capture for years. In an interview with the New York Times in 2016, he argued that Americans could have found him if they wanted, since he lived in plain sight.
In January 2017, Mr. Philippe was arrested in Haiti and extradited to the United States. After initially claiming he was “kidnapped” for his “political beliefs”, months later he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering and was sentenced to nine years in prison.
According to federal records, Mr. Philippe was released from prison in Georgia on September 11, 2019. 7. He was then transferred in immigration custody and was deported to Haiti on Thursday.
The White House referred requests for comment to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the State Department. ICE declined to comment. And the departments of Homeland Security and State did not respond to requests for comment.
Philippe’s arrest in 2017 sparked violent protests among his followers and experts said he may be trying to rebuild his support and become a political force.
“It’s hard to speculate on what this will mean, if anything,” said Jake Johnston, a Haiti expert at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, of Philippe’s return. “Obviously, given his history, past connections and political ambitions, one can expect him to have some influence on the political situation in the country. But to what extent he has a large following or direct ambitions at this time, we don’t know. “We don’t even know if he’ll be in prison tomorrow or not.”
In a letter to the court last November asking for a reduced sentence, Philippe wrote that he had “learned from his recklessness and learned to appreciate the risks and consequences” and that he looked forward to returning to Haiti to “participate to the betterment” of his community of Pestel on the Tiburon Peninsula.
The assassination of President Jovenel Moïse of Haiti in 2021 created a power vacuum in an already unstable nation, and gangs took advantage. A vigilante movement formed earlier this year, made up largely of ordinary Haitians from Port-au-Prince and often carrying machetes instead of guns. The gangs fought back, causing a resurgence of violence.
Haiti’s Prime Minister, Ariel Henry, appealed last year for foreign troops to help restore order. Last month, the United Nations Security Council authorized a Kenyan plan to address gang violence, in what will be the first time an African country has conducted such a mission in Haiti. According to United NationsMore than 3,000 murders have been reported in Haiti this year, along with 1,500 cases of kidnapping for ransom, and 200,000 people have been forced to flee their homes due to the unrest.
But both ordinary Haitians and the country’s experts doubted that the effort — which called for the deployment of 1,000 Kenyan police officers and several hundred officers or soldiers from Caribbean countries, a smaller force than past interventions in Haiti — would was sufficient. The Biden administration, which supported the Kenyan plan, has been reluctant to carry out the mission.
André Paultre contributed reporting from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and Zolan Kanno-Youngs from Mexico City.