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News > Haiti

Haiti: Who Was Truly Behind Jovenel Moise’s Killing?

  • Photo of a banner hanging on a street with the image of assassinated President Jovenel Moise, January 6, 2022, in Pétion-ville, Haiti.

    Photo of a banner hanging on a street with the image of assassinated President Jovenel Moise, January 6, 2022, in Pétion-ville, Haiti. | Photo: EFE/ Johnson Sabin

Published 11 January 2022
Opinion

More than six months later, the whole truth about the assassination in Haiti is yet to be known. 

For human rights organizations in the Caribbean nation, the judicial investigation has been blocked since the Inspector General's Office of the National Police intimidated those who initiated the investigations in September 2021.

RELATED:
 Haiti: Drug Trafficker Involves PM Henry in Moise Assassination

This report recalls telephone records revealed that same month by the prosecutor Bedford Claude, dismissed after asking the person who replaced Jovenel Moise, the current Prime Minister Ariel Henry, to explain his relationship with the former official of the court Ministry of Justice, Joseph Badio.

Still a fugitive after being accused of being responsible for coordinating the assassination in real-time, Badio spoke before and after the crime, at least 12 times with the current Haitian president. Some sources even state that four months after the crime, he visited the prime minister's official residence two nights while fleeing from the authorities without significant obstacles from the security guards. 

Rodolph Jaar was arrested last weekend in the Dominican Republic and confirmed to The New York Times the relationship between Badio and the current Prime Minister of Haiti.
 
Jaar, a Haitian businessman, convicted drug trafficker and DEA informant, acknowledges having contributed some $130,000 to provide weapons and lodging to the more than 20 Colombian mercenaries.   He says he does not know who gave the orders to Badio or who would be the ultimate mastermind. But he joined the plot because the conspirators claimed to have the full support of the United States. 

According to the Times, no active connection to the U.S. government has been proven or that it was involved in or aware of the plot.

However, at least in Haiti, the investigation did not extend to financial connections, when at least two Haitian banking institutions received large sums from the country with at least six citizens or residents implicated in the assassination. 

The FBI has not yet commented on the legal status of two managers of CTU Security, registered in Miami as the Federal Academy, Anti-Terrorism Unit, accused by the Haitian police of participating in the crime plot. Antonio Intriago, an immigrant of Venezuelan origin and Arcangel Pretelt, a former member of the Colombian Army, a native of Cali and a resident of Florida.

Nor have details been offered about another U.S. citizen, Ecuadorian-born mortgage and insurance broker Walter Veintemilla, who acknowledged that his Global Capital Lending Group participated in financing a change of government for Haiti but was not part of the assassination.

In recent days, another key figure, former Colombian military officer Marco Antonio Palacios, was indicted in Florida for conspiring to kill Haiti's president.  

The rest of the mercenaries pointed out alias Floro as one of the people who knew that Jovenel Moïse was going to be executed. After several months on the run, he was arrested in Jamaica. After a stopover in Panama, he was deported to his country; when he was arrested in coordinated action between Colombia and the United States.

But there is something else, the only Colombian ex-military officer who escaped from Haiti after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise, Mario Palacios, gave his version to the United States. The Noticias Caracol news outlet learned details of his explosive account.

Noticias Caracol news outlet has just learned that Palacios admits to the FBI and Homeland Security that the Colombians knew they would assassinate Jovenel Moise.

"In October 2021, Mario Palacios was interviewed and gave voluntary statements to U.S. authorities (...). Palacios admitted that some of the co-conspirators informed him around July 6, 2021, that the plan was to assassinate the Haitian president," the document accessed by Caracol highlights.

There appears to be much that the public should be told about this heinous crime and the difficulty behind getting credible information.
 

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