Lawyers representing five men deported by the United States to Eswatini have said they are being imprisoned illegally and denied proper access to legal representation. The men, who had served their criminal sentences in the US and been released, were sent to the southern African nation in July without warning.
The lawyers said they have been unable to have private conversations with their clients, who are allowed only one short video call per week in the presence of prison staff. A local lawyer representing the five men has been prevented from visiting them at Matsapha maximum security correctional centre. A hearing scheduled for Monday was postponed after the judge failed to appear, according to Alma David, who represents the Yemeni and Cuban detainees.
The US Department of Homeland Security has described the deportees as “depraved monsters” and “so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back.” However, Jamaica’s foreign minister, Kamina Smith, denied that her country had refused to accept any nationals, stating that officials visited Orville Etoria in prison on 21 August and found him “in good spirits.”
Orville Etoria, 62, originally from Jamaica, came to the US legally at age 12. He was convicted of murder in 1997 and released on parole in 2021 after earning a university degree. He was working at a men’s shelter and studying divinity when deported. His lawyer, Mia Unger, said it “makes no sense” that he was sent to Eswatini. The Yemeni man, aged 70, served 22 years for murder and was released in 2020, while the Cuban man, in his mid-50s, had completed sentences for attempted murder and grand theft auto.
Lawyers for the Vietnamese and Laotian deportees said the men, aged 34 and 45, were released in 2015 and 2023 respectively, and the Laotian man is showing signs of depression. Tin Thanh Nguyen, representing them, accused the US of “outsourcing detention” and “making a spectacle of deportations.” Last month, a group of Eswatini NGOs challenged the acceptance of the deportees on constitutional grounds, arguing parliament had not been consulted and human rights were being violated. The Eswatini government declined to comment while cases are ongoing.
