A United States court has ordered a former Haitian mayor to pay more than US$15.5 million in compensation after he was accused of murder, attempted murder and torture in a civil lawsuit.
Jean Morose Viliena, who now lives in Massachusetts, was sued by three Haitian citizens who say they or their relatives were persecuted by him and his political allies when he was the mayor of the rural town.
The lawsuit was filed in 2017 under the Torture Victim Protection Act, a 1991 US law that allows civil lawsuits to be brought against foreign officials accused of wrongdoing, if all legal avenues in their homelands have been exhausted.
The defence had argued that Viliena was not involved in violence and had in fact increased services while leading Les Irois, a town of around 22,000 people about 140 miles from the capital Port-au-Prince.
