Migrants deported from US, including an Iranian woman, arrive in Central African Republic

BANGUI, Central African Republic (AP) — A flight carrying at least two dozen migrants, including an Iranian woman facing persecution in her home country, landed in the Central African Republic on Friday. It is the latest example of the Trump administration’s widely criticized deals with African and Latin American nations to take third-country deportees.

The Central African Republic, a deeply impoverished country plagued by conflict, is one of at least nine African nations with this type of agreement.

Under a series of often-secret agreements that are part of a broad U.S. crackdown on immigration, the Trump administration has deported thousands of people to nearly two dozen countries that are not their own, advocates say.

The Trump administration uses deportations to third countries as a legal loophole to indirectly force asylum seekers back to their home countries, immigration lawyers said.

It was unclear exactly how many migrants were on the deportation flight that left Louisiana late Thursday on the way to the Central African Republic’s capital, Bangui.

Some of the migrants are temporarily staying at a firefighters’ base near the U.S. Embassy compound under construction in Bangui, while others will be housed at other locations, according to a source close to the embassy. The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not allowed to speak publicly on the matter, also said women and men were separated upon arrival.

Among those set to be deported Thursday were people from Iran, Jordan, Armenia, Turkey, Georgia and Afghanistan, according to Ali Rahnama, interim executive director of the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund, who has been in touch with some of the migrants.

Three Iranian women in the U.S. were originally scheduled to be sent to the Central African Republic, according to Sahar Jalili Pawelski, one of their immigration lawyers, who said two of them received emergency court orders temporarily stopping their deportation while judges reviewed whether the government was acting legally.

All had been granted court protection against deportation to Iran after judges ruled they faced credible fears of persecution on the basis of politics or religion, Rahnama said.

“Despite being granted withholding of removal, these individuals are being removed from the United States and abandoned in a country where they have no status, no connection and no support network. We fear they will ultimately be forced to return to the countries they originally fled,” Emily Trostle, an attorney representing two of the women, said Friday.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Thursday would not comment on the case, saying it would not confirm future removal operations for security reasons. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Central African Republic has been plagued by years of conflict between pro-government forces and armed groups and is one of the poorest countries in the world. Despite vast reserves of gold, one in three people live on less than $2 a day.

It also is one of the countries where Wagner, a Russian mercenary group, was first active in Africa. The group has been responsible for President Faustin-Archange Touadéra’s security and fighting rebel groups.

The country remains one of Russia’s closest allies in Africa, despite recent tensions between Touadéra and Moscow over Russia’s push to replace Wagner with the state-controlled Africa Corps.

Rahnama of the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund expressed concerns about an Iranian asylum seeker being sent to the Central African Republic, noting Russia’s influence in the country and Moscow’s close security ties with Iran.

The International Organization for Migration, a U.N.-affiliated agency, will “provide post-arrival humanitarian assistance” to the migrants at the request of the Central African authorities, a spokesperson said.

The U.S. earlier this year awarded $85 million to ⁠the IOM for ​operations in the Central African Republic to provide “assistance to migrants” and promote “community stabilization.”

Banchereau reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writers Rebecca Santana in Washington and Akram Oubachir in Casablanca, Morocco contributed to this report.

FILE - An arial view of Bangui, Central African Republic, is seen on March. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick, File)

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Triple-murderer Erin Patterson appealed her convictions Wednesday for poisoning four of her estranged husband’s relatives with death cap mushrooms.

Three judges of the Victoria state Court of Appeal are hearing her appeal over two days against her convictions on three counts of murder and one of attempted murder relating to a lunch of beef Wellington pastries she prepared at her rural home in Leongatha in July 2023.

Prosecutors are appealing the leniency of her sentence. The 51-year-old was sentenced in September last year to life in prison and must serve at least 33 years behind bars before she can apply for release on parole.

Prosecutors will argue at the hearing Thursday she should be sentenced for life without possibility of parole, Prosecutor Brendan Kissane said.

Defense lawyer Richard Edney’s first ground for appeal Wednesday was an error that resulted in jury members being sequestered in the same hotel as a police witness and members of the prosecution team.

“This was a very serious breach of sequestration,” Edney told the court.

Kissane said there was no evidence to support that ground.

“There was no actual contact between any juror and any other person,” Kissane said.

Another defense lawyer, Veronika Drago, said there was no evidence that Patterson had read online posts that reported death cap mushrooms had been seen near the towns of Loch and Outtrim.

The trial heard evidence from a telecommunications expert that Patterson’s phone connected to towers near Outtrim and Loch.

Drago said the evidence was that Patterson’s phone had possibly been in the area.

“That in and of itself, in our submission, illustrates just how dangerous and unfair that evidence was” on Patterson’s trial, Drago said.

Prosecutor Jeremy McWilliams said the evidence showed that Patterson had an opportunity to deliberately source death cap mushrooms shortly before the lunch.

Another ground for appeal was that Prosecutor Nanette Rogers’ cross-examination of Patterson over five days had been “unfair and oppressive.”

The defense team also argued that trial judge Christopher Bale had caused “unfair prejudice” by allowing evidence from Patterson’s Facebook “friends” into the trial.

Patterson’s estranged husband, Simon Patterson, was invited to the fatal lunch but did not attend.

His parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, died. Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson, spent weeks in hospital, but survived.

Patterson argued during her trial that the poisoning was an accident.

Drago argued a miscarriage of justice occurred when the prosecution opened their case saying there was no evidence of a motive for the poisonings, then closed the case suggesting Patterson's animosity toward her husband's parents and the broader Patterson family was the motive.

Questioned by one of the three judges, Justice Lesley Taylor, Drago said she was not accusing prosecutors of deliberate professional misconduct.

“It is certainly not a direct allegation or suggestion of that, but what is clear in our submission from the reading of all of the material is that where things started and where it finished by the end of the prosecution case were different,” Drago said.

If Patterson's appeal succeeds, the judges could overturn her convictions and order a retrial.

Patterson did not attend court on Wednesday and watched the hearing by video in prison.

In pretrial testimony only made public after her trial, Simon Patterson said he suspected his wife had deliberately made him seriously ill with dishes. No poisons were ever found.

Erin Patterson was initially charged with three counts of attempting to murder him three times between November 2021 and September 2022. She had denied all charges.

Prosecutors dropped all charges relating to the husband before her trial began in April 2025.

This story has corrected the lawyer's name to Drago, not Vargo, throughout.

FILE - Erin Patterson is escorted away from the Supreme Court of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, on Sept. 8, 2025. (Joel Carrett/AAP Image via AP, File)