By Associated Press’s NOKUKHANYA MUSI
Eswatini’s Manzini (AP) A lawyer working on the cases claimed Friday that five immigrants deported by the United States to Eswatini in a covert agreement last month had completed their criminal sentences before being transferred to a prison in the African nation.
During their detention in Eswatini’s largest maximum-security prison, the men from Cuba, Jamaica, Laos, Yemen, and Vietnam who were deported to southern Africa as part of President Donald Trump’s third-country deportation scheme, according to the Eswatini lawyer, have been denied access to legal counsel.
Sibusiso Nhlabatsi, the attorney, claimed he has not been granted access to the men and that he filed court documents on Thursday against the nation’s attorney general and the head of Eswatini’s correctional services department, requesting access.
He claimed that on July 25, Eswatini prison officials barred him from meeting them, despite the fact that he is defending them on behalf of attorneys in the United States. He noted that it is illegal to deny the men, who have been in Eswatini for about two weeks, access to legal representation.
The men will be kept in solitary confinement until they can be sent back to their countries of origin, which could take up to a year, according to the Eswatini authorities.
Nhlabatsi told The Associated Press that they had completed their sentences. Why would you keep someone in a prison after they have served their term for a crime?
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While jail officials stated they were in the midst of setting up equipment to allow the guys to speak with their families, Nhlabatsi said the prisoners have not been able to have visitors or communicate with them since coming to Eswatini.
He said that their continued arrest would have legal ramifications for Eswatini, a tiny nation that borders South Africa and is home to one of the last absolute monarchs in the world, with a king who is accused of suppressing dissent.
The Trump administration’s selection of African nations with whom to reach deportation agreements has drawn criticism. In early July, it deported eight immigrants who were deemed violent offenders to South Sudan; however, this operation was stopped by a judicial challenge in the United States. While the matter was being decided, the eight were detained for weeks in a repurposed shipping container at an American military installation in neighboring Djibouti. Eventually, a Supreme Court decision made it possible for them to be transferred to South Sudan.
Eswatini’s government is accused of being authoritarian, and South Sudan, which is on the verge of civil conflict, has a bad record on human rights. The deportees, who the government claims were in the country unlawfully, will probably not be given fair process in other countries, according to critics.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security also characterized the five individuals who were transported to Eswatini as severe criminals. The department claimed in social media posts that their convictions included child rape and murder, labeling them particularly savage.
A request for comment on Friday was not immediately answered by the department, which did not specify whether they had finished their sentences.
A representative for the Eswatini administration likewise declined to address Nhlabatsi’s claims, stating that the matter was now for the courts.
Nhlabatsi stated that the deportees are being detained at the Matsapha Correctional Complex, which is close to Mbabane, the administrative capital. It is believed that pro-democracy activists are being jailed there on false accusations. Citing security concerns, the government has refused to disclose the location of the five men’s detention.
Eswatini’s assertion that the five men were eventually deported back to their countries of origin seems to run counter to American assertions that the men’s home countries declined to accept them.
The administration claims that the contents of the agreement with the United States are classified, despite demands from activists in Eswatini that they be made public. Additionally, South Sudan has refused to provide information on its agreement to accept deportees from the United States.
