Thongxay Nilakout, the man convicted of killing a German tourist near Idyllwild, California, as a 17-year-old in 1994, has left South Sudan for Laos after spending more than a year detained in Juba under a U.S. deportation arrangement that drew sustained legal and diplomatic scrutiny. Nilakout, now 49, traveled to Vientiane on Thursday after being held in Juba since July 2025, a journey that closes out a yearslong saga stretching from a California prison cell to a gated compound in East Africa.
The case traces back to May 1994, when Nilakout shot and killed 62-year-old Gisela Pfleger and wounded her husband, Klaus, during a robbery near Idyllwild, according to the Los Angeles Times, which reported Nilakout was tried in Riverside County alongside two co-defendants and convicted in 1995 of first-degree murder, attempted murder and robbery. He was sentenced to life without parole, but a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling banning mandatory juvenile life sentences eventually made him eligible for resentencing. California's parole board granted him parole in December, and Gov. Gavin Newsom referred the grant for review in May, as Patch reported at the time.
Nilakout had worked as a restaurant cook after his 2023 release, but U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement took him into custody on January 26, 2025, according to News4JAX, which cited Associated Press reporting by Deng Machol and Joseph Falzetta. Nilakout had come to the United States as a child in 1980 after his family fled Laos, spending time in a refugee camp in Thailand, the outlet reported. Nilakout's attorney said he had been willing to return to Laos before the U.S. instead deported him to South Sudan.
A Diverted Flight and a Standoff in Djibouti
In May 2025, Nilakout and seven other men were put on a flight toward Africa, but a federal judge blocked their deportation to South Sudan mid-flight, rerouting the plane to a U.S. military base in Djibouti, per the same AP account relayed by News4JAX. U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy later ruled that immigration authorities had violated court orders by giving the men only 12 hours' notice before the flight and no access to legal counsel, according to Newsweek, which reported that DHS and White House officials accused the judge of interfering with federal foreign policy.
A subsequent U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowed the men's removal to go forward, and they arrived in Juba aboard a military aircraft, where they were held in a gated house under armed guard, the AP reported. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security defended the transfer in a July 2025 statement, characterizing the eight men as violent offenders whose native countries had refused to accept them and noting that legal injunctions had stranded ICE officers in Djibouti for weeks.
A Victim's Daughter Speaks Out
The case drew an unusual public response from Birte Pfleger, the daughter of Gisela Pfleger and a history professor, who criticized the federal government in 2025 for what she called a violation of Nilakout's constitutional due process rights in deporting him to South Sudan. According to The Guardian, Pfleger said that denying due process set a dangerous legal precedent regardless of an offender's criminal past — a position she maintained despite her own continuing grief over her parents' shooting.
DHS is preparing a response to questions about Nilakout's case, News4JAX reported. The department's earlier statement had grouped him among the eight men as having criminal convictions in the United States and having already served their prison sentences before entering immigration custody.
Laos Agrees to Take Him Back
South Sudan's foreign ministry coordinated Nilakout's repatriation directly with the Laotian government, and a Lao consular officer told Nilakout's family that a travel document had already been issued before his departure, per the AP report carried by News4JAX. Laos provided assurances against torture or other ill-treatment upon his return. Nilakout left for Laos. Nguyen told the AP that the deportation to Laos came as a relief for the family and proof that he should have been sent there in the first place.
Five Deportees Still Stuck in Juba
Nilakout's departure leaves five third-country deportees remaining in South Sudan, according to the AP account relayed by News4JAX: four of the original eight men — two Burmese nationals and two Cuban nationals — plus a Congolese national who joined them later. South Sudan's foreign ministry says it is working with other governments and international partners to arrange safe and humane repatriation for the remaining five. Separately, Amnesty International reported in October 2026 that Vietnamese national Tuan Thanh Phan, another deportee from the same May 2025 flight, had already been repatriated in June 2026, per Amnesty International UK.
Human Rights First and Refugees International have reported that hundreds of people have been deported from the U.S. to African countries that are not their home nations, with around a dozen African countries accepting third-country deportees and some receiving millions of dollars in payments for doing so, per the AP reporting. Armed conflict in South Sudan displaced more than half a million people in 2025, the same reporting noted — a volatile backdrop against which the detained men were held.
A Policy Still Being Fought in Court
Nilakout's case sits inside a broader legal fight over third-country deportations.
Nilakout's long route from a California prison cell to Juba and finally to Vientiane stands as one tangible outcome of a policy whose legal boundaries are still being drawn in real time, with five men still waiting in South Sudan for their own resolution.
