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US judge orders Haitian to pay $19m to rape victims
Thursday, October 26, 2006
NEW YORK, USA (AFP): A US federal judge here sentenced the head of a disbanded Haitian paramilitary group living in New York to pay 19 million dollars in damages to three women raped by his men in the early 1990s.
Federal Judge Sidney Stein ruled Tuesday that Emmanuel "Toto" Constant, the former head of a pro-government paramilitary group known as FRAPH, was responsible for torture, including rape, attempted murder and crimes against humanity.
Constant was ordered to pay 15 million dollars in punitive damages and four million dollars in compensatory damages to the three women.
According to the Center for Justice and Accountability, a US-based rights non-governmental organization, it is "the first judgment where someone has been held accountable for the state-sponsored campaign of rape in Haiti."
Constant has been living in the United States since December 1994, and was living and working in New York until he was arrested in July in connection with a mortgage fraud scheme.
The former paramilitary leader remains jailed as he awaits a criminal trial on charges of grand larceny, forgery and falsifying business records for the mortgage scheme.
FRAPH was aimed at terrorizing the supporters of then-exiled Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide during the 1991-1994 military rule of general Raoul Cedras.
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