A Haitian man accused of torture, on the run from U.S. immigration officials for nearly two years, has been apprehended and soon will be deported back to Haiti, local immigration officials said Wednesday.


U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Detention and Removal officers arrested Michael Fortuna on Monday after finding him hiding out in a house in Key West.


Fortuna, 47, had been on the run since Sept. 12, 2002, when the Board of Immigration Appeals upheld a lower court’s decision to deport him after determining that he was a human rights abuser linked to the Haitian paramilitary group FRAPH.


Instead of turning himself in, Fortuna fled, according to the news release by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.


— JACQUELINE CHARLES