A package of news briefs from the Caribbean

ST. LUCIA: St. Lucia prime minister returns from U.S. following treatment for strokes

CASTRIES, St. Lucia (AP) _ Prime Minister Sir John Compton has returned from the United States where he received treatment following a series of strokes, but officials gave no indication Monday of whether he will be able to resume official duties.

Compton, 83, flew to the Caribbean island from New York on Saturday, said Stephenson King, the acting prime minister.

A government statement said Compton has begun therapy to improve the coordination of his legs and is speaking more slowly than usual, but said he did not suffer any brain damage. It promised to regularly update the former British colony of 160,000 people on Compton's condition.

Lennard Montoute, a Cabinet minister who visited Compton last week at the unspecified New York hospital he entered May 1, said the prime minister's health would likely force him to leave office.

Compton ended a nine-year retirement in 2005 to lead the United Workers Party and won an upset election victory in December. He previously led St. Lucia as prime minister from 1964 to 1979 and 1982 to 1996.

DOMINICAN: Health workers remove tainted Chinese-made toothpaste from stores

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) _ More than 10,000 tubes of Chinese-made toothpaste have been removed from stores because they contain a potentially deadly chemical.

Hundreds of health workers have been searching for brands "Excel" and "Mr. Cool" since Dominican authorities learned Friday that they are tainted by the chemical diethylene glycol, environmental health director Luis Felix Roa said Monday.

The shipments arrived from Panama, where last year medicines contaminated by diethylene glycol killed at least 51 people.

Panama also removed the toothpastes from stores last week, but said the chemical levels do not appear to be dangerous. Still, officials in both countries have advised consumers not to use the product.

The toothpaste entered the Dominican Republic illegally in shipments registered as "food for animals," the health department said.

The tubes were seized from supermarkets and corner stores in the capital of Santo Domingo, as well as the provinces of Jimani, Elias Pina, Barahona, Azua and Samana. The government advised neighboring Haiti to watch for the toothpaste because some boxes contained writing in Haitian Creole.

HAITI: 'strongman' denies role in killings as he fights deportation after fraud sentence

NEW YORK (AP) _ A former paramilitary leader wanted in Haiti on murder and torture charges insisted Monday that he has become a scapegoat for atrocities in the Caribbean nation and would be killed if he were forced to return.

"If I ever touch Haiti, I will be executed at the airport," Emmanuel "Toto" Constant said in a rambling, emotional plea to a judge overseeing his mortgage fraud case in state Supreme Court.

The dire warning was a switch from last week, when Constant, 50, told the judge he did not fear going back because he had done nothing wrong.

On Monday, Constant repeated claims that he had worked with the CIA while head of a Haitian paramilitary group in the 1990s. He also said he was "promoting reconciliation" at the time but has become a target of political persecution.

Last week, prosecutors urged Justice Abraham Gerges to sentence Constant to time served, about 10 months of a proposed sentence of one to three years, to speed his deportation to Haiti to face charges there.

Gerges postponed the sentencing after the Center for Constitutional Rights claimed Haiti's justice system was too unstable to ensure Constant's proper prosecution. The civil rights group also argued the proposed sentence in the fraud case was too lenient, given Constant's background.

GUANTANAMO: Troubled Guantanamo detainee vows another suicide attempt

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) _ A detainee at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay detention center who has repeatedly attempted suicide has warned that he still hopes to kill himself out of despair over his confinement and conditions at the American military jail in Cuba.

Juma Mohammed Al-Dossary said in a letter that he would prefer death than his open-ended detention at Guantanamo, where he complains that he and other detainees have been mistreated _ an accusation denied by the U.S. military.

"I swear to God, if I have the opportunity I would end my life," Al-Dossary says in the letter, which was reviewed by the U.S. military before its release.

The 33-year-old detainee, who has been held at the camp without charges since January 2002, has tried to kill himself at least 10 times at Guantanamo, according to the U.S. government.

In an October 2005 attempt, Al-Dossary slashed his arm and tried to hang himself during a break in a meeting with his attorney, Joshua Colangelo-Bryan. The former chief medical officer at Guantanamo said in court papers filed a month after the incident that the detainee has undisclosed "mental health issues" and has often refused to take medicine or cooperate with therapists.

Colangelo-Bryan, who met with the prisoner for seven hours in April, said the detainee is "completely coherent" but severely depressed about his situation.