SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Four key suspects in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse have been flown to the United States for trial as the case stalled in Haiti amid death threats that have frightened local judges, they announced. US officials on Tuesday.
The suspects now in US government custody include James Solages, 37, and Joseph Vincent, 57, two Haitian-Americans who were among the first arrested after Moïse was shot 12 times at his private home near from the capital, Port-au-Prince. on July 7, 2021.
Also charged is Christian Emmanuel Sanon, an elderly pastor, doctor and failed businessman who authorities have identified as a key player. His associates have suggested that he was set up by the true masterminds behind the as-yet-unidentified assassination, which plunged Haiti into deep political chaos and unleashed a level of gang violence not seen in decades. .
The fourth suspect was identified as Colombian citizen Germán Rivera García, 44, who is among nearly two dozen former Colombian soldiers charged in the case.
Rivera, along with Solages and Vincent, face charges including conspiring to commit murder or kidnapping outside the US and providing material support and resources that resulted in death, the US Department of Justice said.
Political cartoons about world leaders
Political Cartoons
Sanon is charged with conspiring to smuggle goods from the US and providing illegal export information. Court documents state that she allegedly shipped 20 ballistic vests to Haiti, but that the items shipped were described as “medical X-ray vests and school supplies.”
It was not immediately known if the four suspects had attorneys who could comment on the development. The men are scheduled to appear in federal court on Wednesday in Miami.
A total of seven suspects in the case are now in US custody. Dozens of people still languish in Haiti’s main penitentiary, which is severely overcrowded and often lacks food and water for inmates.
The case has reached a virtual stalemate in Haiti, with local officials last year nominating a fifth judge to investigate the murder after four others were fired or resigned for personal reasons.
A judge told The Associated Press that his family asked him not to take the case because they feared for his life. Another judge resigned after one of his assistants died in shady circumstances.
Court documents indicate that exactly two months before Moïse was killed, Vincent texted Solages a video of a cat “reacting alert” to the sound of gunshots and Solages laughing, prompting for Vincent to reply: “That’s how Jovenel will be, but (before) if they really measure up!
The document states that Solages responded that “(this) cat will never come back” and “believe me brother, we are definitely working on our final decision.”
Then, in June, some 20 former Colombian soldiers were recruited to allegedly help arrest the president and protect Sanon, who saw himself as Haiti’s new leader. Rivera was in charge of that group, the documents say.
The plan was to detain Moïse and take him to an unidentified location on a plane, but that plot fell through when the suspects could not find a plane or enough weapons, authorities said.
A day before the assassination, Solages falsely told other suspects that it was a CIA operation and that the mission was to kill the president, according to the documents. Shortly before the assassination, authorities said, Solages yelled that it was supposedly a DEA operation to ensure compliance by the president’s security team.
About a year after the murder, US authorities say they interviewed Solages, Vincent and Rivera while they were in Haitian custody and agreed to talk.
The other suspects already in US custody are Rodolphe Jaar, a former US government informant and Haitian businessman who was extradited from the Dominican Republic, where he was held in January 2022.
That same month, US authorities arrested Mario Antonio Palacios Palacios, a former Colombian soldier who was deported by Jamaica after fleeing Haiti. While he was en route to Colombia, he was detained by US officials in Panama during a layover.
Also in January 2022, authorities arrested former Haitian Senator John Joël Joseph, who had also fled to Jamaica.
Alfredo Izaguirre, Palacios’ lawyer in Miami, said the arrival Tuesday of the other four suspects will postpone the trial because they all must be tried at the same time. He said Palacios had prepared for the trial to begin in early March, but now it could be postponed for up to four months.
Haitian police say other high-profile suspects remain at large, including a former Supreme Court judge who authorities say was favored to take power from Moïse instead of Sanon as originally planned. Another fugitive is Joseph Badio, the alleged leader of the plot who previously worked for Haiti’s Justice Ministry and the government’s anti-corruption unit until he was fired, police say.
Emmanuel Jeanty, a lawyer for the president’s widow, Martine Moïse, who was injured in the attack and taken to the United States for treatment, did not return a message for comment.
In December, Martine Moïse tweeted that her husband, who has also been accused of corruption, which he denied, had fought against her, resulting in her murder. “Despite the blockades, 17 months later, the people demand #Justice,” she wrote.
Associated Press writer Gisela Salomon in Miami contributed to this report.
Copyright 2023 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
