 |
|
||||||||||||||||||
| Download the DRAFT of the new Constitution of Haiti (May 2025) |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||
|
|
Haiti - Justice : Former mayor of Les Irois sentenced to 9 years in prison in the USA 21/06/2025 10:03:47
"In Haiti, Jean Morose Viliena was involved in brutal murders, beatings, and assaults against anyone he believed threatened his power as mayor," said Matthew R. Galeotti, chief of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. "His lies to U.S. immigration authorities allowed him to enter the United States illegally and obtain permanent resident status." Viliena, 53, served as mayor of Les Irois, Haiti, from December 2006 to February 2010. As a candidate and mayor, Viliena was supported by Korega, a political machine that used armed violence to exert its power in southwestern Haiti. Viliena personally supervised his municipal team and other armed Korega supporters, ordering them to use armed violence to crush any opposition to his authority. According to evidence presented at trial, on July 27, 2007, Viliena violently retaliated against an activist who had previously spoken in a court proceeding on behalf of a neighbor he had assaulted. That evening, in brutal retaliation, Viliena led an armed group to the activist’s home. Viliena and his associates shot the activist's younger brother and then smashed his skull with a large rock in front of a crowd of passersby. Viliena committed another act of violent retaliation in April 2008, when he and his associates attacked community members who had founded a radio station that Viliena opposed. According to several witnesses, Viliena mobilized armed members of his staff and supporters to forcibly shut down the radio station and seize its broadcasting equipment. Viliena distributed firearms to his men, some of whom were also armed with machetes and pickaxes. According to evidence presented at trial, during this incident, Viliena beat a man and ordered an associate to shoot him as he tried to flee. As a result, the man's leg was amputated above the knee. Viliena also beat a student who was at the radio station; As the student tried to flee, a bullet struck him in the face, leaving him permanently blind in one eye. Less than two months after the attack on the radio station, Viliena presented himself at the consular office of the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where he submitted a visa application to enter the United States. The visa application specifically requires the applicant to indicate whether they fall into a category of persons excluded from U.S. territory, including those who have "ordered, perpetrated, or materially contributed to extrajudicial and political killings and other acts of violence against the Haitian people," which were declared non-compliant. Viliena then swore and affirmed before a U.S. consular officer that the contents of the application were true and signed it. Based on Viliena's false statements, the United States approved his visa application and allowed him to enter the United States. The United States subsequently granted him lawful permanent resident status and a permanent resident card, also known as a "green card". For years, thanks to his fraudulently obtained green card, Viliena enjoyed employment, sufficient income, comfortable housing, a safe community, the ability to visit his family in Les Irois at any time, and the privilege of raising and educating a son, now a U.S. citizen by birth. See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-44666-haiti-justice-former-mayor-jean-morose-viliena-of-les-irois-sentenced-in-the-usa.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-39103-haiti-flash-j-m-viliena-ex-mayor-of-irois-accused-in-the-usa-of-murder-torture-and-political-violence.html HL/ HaitiLibre
|
|
|
|
Why HaitiLibre ? |
Contact us |
Français
Copyright © 2010 - 2025 Haitilibre.com |