Cambodian Trump deportee becomes second to be released by Eswatini, lawyers say

By Tim Cocks

MBABANE, March 26 (Reuters) – A Cambodian man whom the U.S. Trump administration deported to Eswatini after he finished serving a 15-year sentence for attempted murder has been released, his lawyer said, the second of at least 19 deportees sent to the country to be freed.

Eswatini authorities released Pheap Rom from prison on Wednesday, while on Thursday he was in the process of being repatriated to Cambodia, his lawyer Tin Nguyen told Reuters.

A spokesperson for Eswatini’s correctional services did not respond to a request for comment, but two legal sources in the country, who declined to be named because they were not authorised to speak, confirmed his release.

Earlier this month, Eswatini said it had received four more third-country deportees from the U.S, in accordance with a roughly $5 million deal between the two countries.

The only other to have gotten out was a Jamaican man repatriated in September.

Eswatini is one of several African countries that have made deals with the U.S. to receive third-country deportees, as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

Rights groups have strongly condemned the policy of deporting immigrants to third countries, where some have been jailed without charges and others forcibly returned to states which they had fled for fear of persecution.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in June that the deportees sent to Eswatini were “so uniquely barbaric that their own countries won’t take them back.” But Eswatini has said it is not true that some of the countries rejected their citizens, and that it aims to repatriate all of them.

(Reporting by Tim Cocks; Editing by Arun Koyyur)