Haiti: Ex-Officer Implicated In Moise's Murder Dies in Hospital

The Haitian National Police (PNH) reported that former police commissioner Gilbert Dragon, who was involved in the assassination of President Jovenel Moise, died on Wednesday in a hospital in Port-au-Prince after suffering coronavirus symptoms.

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Reuters reported that Dragon's wife, Marie Leslie Noel, who confirmed that the former police officer died of cardiac arrest, had "spent two weeks trying to get him moved to a hospital and struggled to get a COVID-19 test done on time." Once she managed to do it, however, it was too late.

Dragon was transferred to the health center from the National Penitentiary, where he had been held since his arrest on July 14. According to data revealed by the National Human Rights Network, he supplied the clothes with DEA identifications to the mercenaries who murdered Moise on July 7.

Dragon's death occurred the same day the PNH reported it sent three agents to Turkey to extradite Samir Handal, a businessman who is also linked to the Moise case and was arrested on Nov. 14.

Previously, the Haitian Central Directorate of the Judicial Police (DCPJ) issued an international arrest warrant against Handal. Interpol was informed that this businessman left on a flight from Miami to a Middle Eastern country.

In Turkey, Handal was finally arrested in an operation in which local authorities had the collaboration of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

So far, 44 people have been arrested for the murder of President Moise. Among them are 12 policemen, 18 Colombians, and three Haitians. The last Colombian mercenary arrested is a former military officer, Marco Palacios, who was captured in Jamaica in October and awaits extradition to Haiti.