Haiti seeks five armed fugitives as assassination probe deepens
Haitian authorities investigating the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse said five armed and dangerous fugitives include a fired government official, an informant for the US government, and a former local senator who once compared the leader to the coronavirus.
Former Sen. John Joel Joseph, an opponent of Moïse’s Tet
Kale party, made the comparison in a video posted last year on YouTube.
“Insecurity has infected every single Haitian,” said Joseph,
who claimed Haitians had died of hunger or been killed amid a spike in violence
under Moïse’s administration.
The second suspect has been identified as Joseph Felix
Badio, who previously worked for Haiti’s Ministry of Justice and joined the
government’s anti-corruption unit in March 2013.
The agency issued a statement saying Badio was fired in May
amid “serious breaches” of unspecified ethical rules, adding that it filed a
complaint against him.
“This villainous act is an affront to our democracy,” the
anti-corruption unit said in a statement Tuesday. “The authors, co-authors,
accomplices must be hunted down, investigated and punished with the utmost
rigor.”
The third suspect, identified as Rodolphe Jaar, was born in
Haiti, speaks English and has a college degree in business administration,
according to court records.
Jaar, who uses the alias Whiskey, was indicted in federal
court in South Florida in 2013 on charges of conspiring to smuggle cocaine from
Colombia and Venezuela through Haiti to the US.
He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to nearly four years
behind bars, according to court records.
At Jaar’s 2015 sentencing hearing, his attorney told the
court that the man had been a confidential source for the US government for
several years. He also agreed to cooperate with the feds and asked for a
lighter sentence, saying he had a wife, 1-year-old child and elderly parents.
In 2000, Jaar filed a civil lawsuit against the US
government seeking the return of a “large amount” of cash taken from him along
with his passport and tourist visa when he was stopped in a rental car by
customs agents.
He was not arrested at the time, but Jaar said he found out
he was under investigation for money-laundering. The government ultimately
returned his property and did not file charges.
Jaar, who dropped the lawsuit, described himself in court
papers as the owner of a successful import business in Haiti that his family
had operated since 1944.
Authorities are investigating the Moïse killing with help
from Colombia’s government, which has said that 23 of 26 former Colombian
soldiers suspected in the slaying have been detained in Haiti.
Leon Charles, chief of Haiti’s National Police, said three
Haitians – James Solages, Joseph Vincent and Christian Emmanuel Sanon — also
have been arrested and at least three suspects killed.
Investigators said Sanon, 62, a Haitian physician, church
pastor and Florida businessman, flew to Haiti in June aboard a private jet with
several of the alleged gunmen.
He once reportedly expressed a desire to lead Haiti in a
YouTube video and has denounced the country’s leaders as corrupt.
Charles said that Sanon was working with those who plotted
the assassination and that Moïse’s killers were protecting him.
The police chief said officers who raided Sanon’s house in
Haiti found a hat with a DEA logo, 20 boxes of ammunition, gun parts, four
license plates from the Dominican Republic, two vehicles and correspondence.
A business associate and a pastor in Florida who knew Sanon
told The Associated Press that Sanon was religious and that they did not
believe he would be involved in violence.
The associate said on condition of anonymity that he
believes Sanon was duped, describing him as “completely gullible.”
Meanwhile, an ex-soldier recruited to join the alleged
Colombian gunmen added his voice to a chorus of family and colleagues who claim
they were contracted to provide security, not to kill.
Matias Gutierrez, a retired special forces sniper and father
of four, would have traveled to Haiti with the group if he had not tested
positive for COVID-19, according to Reuters.
“If I had traveled, I would possibly be involved in the same
thing that the commandos there are, unfortunately,” Gutierrez told the news
agency.
Gutierrez, who is now a security guard, said he knows the
men were not involved in the assassination because they are honorable and also
well-trained in how to attack a target and then pull back if that had been
their actual mission.
“It wasn’t our commandos. There has to have been a
conspiracy,” Gutierrez said. “Their extraction was total chaos. Why? Because
they weren’t going on an assault, they went in support of a request by the
security forces of the president.”
Gutierrez, who showed Reuters the WhatsApp chat where he
claims discussions about the job took place, told the news outlet that the men
were to earn $2,700 a month to help protect the president and were assured they
would work in tandem with Haitian authorities.
He said he chatted to some of the men when they first
arrived in Haiti. They told him things were going well and that they were
staying in a house close to the presidential palace, according to Reuters.
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