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CNN Saturday Morning News
Freedoms in U.S. Can Provide Sanctuary to Human Rights Abusers
Aired February 02, 2002 - 07:40 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The United States has long enjoyed its international reputation as home of the free, but those freedoms can also provide sanctuary for some people accused of human rights abuses in their own homelands.
As CNN's Brian Cabell (sic) explains, it's a concern that can land on your doorstep or as your neighbor.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARK POTTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From his company in Boynton Beach, Florida, International Educational Missions, 67-year- old Richard Krieger is on the hunt. The former State Department official and Nazi hunter devotes himself now to a new campaign. Krieger believes more than 1,000 modern-day war criminals, torturers and killers from around the world live freely in the United States.
RICHARD KRIEGER, INTL. EDUCATIONAL MISSIONS: I don't want these people coming here and enjoying these freedoms and enjoying the liberties of what is, without question, the greatest democracy in the world, because they just don't deserve it.
POTTER: One of Krieger's better known targets is Emmanuel Constant. Constant led a Haitian paramilitary group, accused of brutality during the military regimes and lives now in New York. He denied CNN's request for an interview, but his lawyer says Constant did nothing wrong personally. A Haitian court convicted him in absentia of involvement in a 1994 massacre.
(on camera): Krieger says he has the U.S. addresses of alleged human rights violators from Rwanda, Ethiopia, China, Bosnia, El Salvador and Honduras. Most, he says, entered the U.S. using their real names. Current law meant to protect those fleeing persecution makes it very difficult to throw out accused persecutors as well.
(voice-over): But Krieger says public and government attitudes are beginning to change and cites the case of Alberto Medeiros (ph), a retired Cuban-American nursing home worker living near Miami. Authorities claim from 1968 to 1978, in this psychiatric hospital in Havana, Medeiros (ph) repeatedly tortured political prisoners by giving them electric shocks. Jorge Ferrer says he was one of Medeiros victims.
JORGE FERRER, FMR. CUBAN POLITICAL PRISONER: He told me "Because you are against the Revolution, and I could kill you and nothing is going to happen to me."
POTTER (on camera): He said he "could kill you and nothing would happen to me?"
FERRER: Yes.
POTTER (voice-over): Last year at the urging of Krieger and South Florida's Cuban-American political leaders, federal officials arrested and charged Medeiros with illegally obtaining U.S. citizenship.
GUY LEWIS, U.S. ATTORNEY: The privilege of United States citizenship does not belong with this man, who so brutally tortured his fellow countrymen.
POTTER: Medeiros wouldn't talk to CNN. His lawyer says there is not enough evidence to convict him. If convicted, Medeiros could be jailed.
Richard Krieger now supports proposed legislation that would make it easier to detain, deport and prevent torturers and war criminals from entering the United States.
REP. MARK FOLEY (R), FLORIDA: Based on September 11, I think every American would welcome these people being deported and sent home.
POTTER: Until then, Richard Krieger says his mission is to turn the spotlight white hot.
Mark Potter, CNN, Miami.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: All right. That from Mark Potter, not Brian Cabell.
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