The Noble MP Lord Tuʻilakepa said the increasing number of Tongan criminal deportees from overseas has become a matter of concern for him.
Tuʻilakepa has disclosed in Parliament on Tuesday that the deportees have caused a lot of problems in Tonga.
He claimed the Tongan criminals overseas were sent to Tonga because the foreign countries got the permission to do so from Tongan consuls in Australia, the United States, Hawaiʻi and in New Zealand.
His claim was instantly rejected by the Minister of Revenues Tēvita Lavemaau who said Tongan consuls overseas have nothing to do with the Tongan criminal deportees.
If they breached those nations’ laws and their crimes entitled them to a deportation it is entirely up to those countries to deport them and there was nothing to do with the Tongan offices overseas, Lavemaau said.
Tuʻikaepa said he got his information from retired and former Tongan consuls.
Analysts argued that the criminal deportees were contributing to an escalation of crime and high levels of violence in Tonga.
This including kidnapping, armed robbery and killing during robbery something the kingdom did not experience before the last two decades.
Last year in November it was reported that Patrick ʻUnga, who had received a life sentence for murdering his fiancé in New Zealand in 2003, killed again in Tonga only a few months after his deportation to Tonga two years ago.
He was sentenced to more than 12 years in jail for manslaughter after the death of Sitanilei Sime in Nuku’alofa in April 2014.
Last month two brothers Motekiai and John Taufahema were deported to Tonga from Australia after a court convicted and sent them to jail for the death of Glenn McEnallay, a Police constable in Sydney.
The Taufahemas served 11 years in prison.
McEnallay was shot three times in the head and the chest and he later died in hospital.
