It wasn’t easy to understand why the CIA would want to back a murderous, anti-democratic death squad. Aristide was a charismatic man, a leftist, a former priest. Maybe they feared he was a Castro in the making, a man who might threaten business relations between Haiti and the US. Still, if anyone doubted Constant’s word, they didn’t for long. He implied that should the extradition go ahead, he’d reveal devastating secrets about American foreign policy in Haiti. Almost immediately – on 14 June 1996 – the US authorities released him from jail and gave him a green card to work in the US.
