23946: Hermantin (Pub)Suspect set for deportation to Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Miami Herald

Posted on Fri, Dec. 17, 2004


IMMIGRATION
Suspect set for deportation to Haiti
A Haitian human-rights violator suspect faces deportation to Haiti, where he
was convicted in the murder of a Jean Bertrand Aristide supporter.
BY ALFONSO CHARDY
achardy@herald.com

Marc Kernizan, convicted in Haiti for the 1993 murder of a prominent
supporter of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, has chosen not to
fight deportation and could be sent back to Haiti within a few days.

Kernizan, a former Haitian military police major, was arrested in Miami on
Nov. 8 on immigration charges. He could be on a plane to Haiti as early as
this weekend, a Bush administration official said Thursday.

While removal to Haiti was what U.S. government officials sought when they
arrested Kernizan, human rights activists were upset, saying Haitian justice
cannot be trusted to punish human-rights violators.

Richard Krieger, a Boynton Beach-based human rights activist who tracks
foreign torture suspects, said other abusers have been freed in Haiti
recently.

''There is not a system of equitable justice now operating in Haiti,''
Krieger said. ``This is evidenced by the trial and release of other human
rights abusers including those connected with the Raboteau massacre, one of
the worst atrocities in Haitian history.''

The Bush administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said
Kernizan's departure would take place under unusual circumstances.

Typically, he said, Haitian human rights suspects have been deported aboard
U.S. government flights escorted by American officials.

The official said Kernizan would leave by commercial flight escorted by a
Haitian government official.

Nina Pruneda, a spokeswoman in Miami for U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, declined comment on when and how Kernizan would leave citing
``safety and security reasons.''

Kernizan fled Haiti in 1995 after he was ordered to testify about the murder
of Antoine Izmery on Sept. 11, 1993. Kernizan was suspected of belonging to
the death squad that led Izmery to his death.

Izmery, a businessman and Lavalas supporter, was at a church Mass
commemorating the anniversary of a 1988 massacre when a group of armed men
escorted him from the church and shot him twice in the head.

Kernizan was convicted in absentia in the murder trial.

He arrived in the United States in 1995 on a visitor's visa in his own name
and later obtained a green card.

Kernizan lived in North Miami-Dade but there are few details about what he
did for a living.

He applied for citizenship and was arrested when he appeared for a
naturalization interview last month. He was charged with concealing his
military past, an immigration law violation.

After being locked up at Krome last month, Kernizan chose not to fight an
immigration judge's deportation order, waived all appeals and gave up his
green card, the administration official said.