30 more suspects arrested in connection with killing of Haitian leader

By DAVID C. ADAMS

The U.S. Justice Department on Sunday arrested an additional 30 suspects in the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, including 18 who had been transferred from Haiti to Miami aboard a U.S. military plane, according to the U.S. attorney for South Florida.

The other 12 suspects were apprehended in multiple locations, Reding Quiñones, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, said in a post on the social platform X announcing the arrests.

“Today marks the next major phase in our pursuit of accountability for the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse,” he wrote. He added, “Five years later, we are still bringing defendants before American courts, and we are not finished.”

Quiñones did not identify the suspects. But Haiti’s justice minister, Patrick Pelissier, said that the plane carried 17 former Colombian soldiers and Joseph Badio, a former Haitian Justice Ministry official who had been named by investigators in Haiti as the central architect and “orchestra leader” of the plot. Badio has said he is innocent and is being made a scapegoat in the assassination.

Moïse died after being shot several times at close range in his bedroom on the night of July 7, 2021. His wife, who was standing near him, was struck by two bullets but survived.

Prosecutors in Miami have already convicted 12 people accused of links to the conspiracy to assassinate Moïse, 53, including two former Colombian soldiers, a Haitian politician and the owners of a Miami security firm, CTU Federal Academy, that hired the assassins, as well as three people accused of helping finance the operation.

Haiti’s Ministry of Justice confirmed Sunday that the 18 people had been extradited as a result of “significant advances” in the legal case in the United States. The ministry added that the case against the accused men in Haiti had run into “important difficulties” that had prevented the investigation from proceeding there. Officials did not detail those difficulties, but the case has encountered repeated obstacles because of threats and political interference.

“The government reaffirms its determination to ensure that justice is served for President Jovenel Moïse, his family, and the Haitian people,” Pelissier, the justice minister, said in a statement.

On Sunday morning, a U.S. military aircraft arrived at Port-au-Prince’s international airport to pick up the former Colombian soldiers for extradition, according to local media reports. Images showed the men walking across the tarmac to the back of the plane wearing light blue jumpsuits and earmuffs.

The assassination of Moïse unleashed a wave of gang violence in the country, and nearly 1.5 million people have fled their homes in recent years. Large parts of the capital, Port-au-Prince, are still considered unsafe, disrupting the local courts as well as preventing elections from being held to select Moïse’s replacement.

The new arrests could help cast more light on the still unclear motives for the assassination and who ordered it.

So far, the Justice Department has prosecuted “just a narrow part of what was clearly a much larger conspiracy, and this raises hopes — and expectations — of a more thorough accounting of what really transpired,” said Jake Johnston, a Haiti expert with the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

The wife of one of the Colombians who was extradited told The New York Times that the news of his transfer had taken her completely by surprise. “I spoke to him three days ago, and he knew nothing about this,” said Milena Rey Quintero. “I don’t know what to think. I feel like all this pushes the possibility of seeing him again further away.”

Criminal defense lawyers in South Florida involved in the case said they were unaware of the transfer. However, several new court filings in the past week were entered under seal, which could suggest a revised indictment against new defendants in the case.

The new arrests come only a week before another major suspect in the case, Christian Emmanuel Sanon, who sought to replace Moïse as president, is scheduled to go on trial. Sanon has said he never wanted to see Moïse killed, just arrested and deposed.

Sanon had been due to go on trial this year with four other defendants but his case was delayed because of health issues. The other four men were convicted in May and are awaiting sentencing.