Overview:
The investigation into President Jovenel Moïse’s assassination resurfaced this week with a courtroom listening to for key suspect Joseph Félix Badio, who denied involvement and accused police of omitting essential names. In the meantime, fugitive Dimitri Hérard, the previous head of palace safety, alleged in two YouTube movies that the U.S. Embassy and ex-police chief Léon Charles had been complicit, including additional complexity to the stalled case.
PORT-AU-PRINCE — Throughout a Courtroom of Attraction listening to on Monday, Feb. 10, Joseph Félix Badio, a key suspect within the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, denied any involvement and referred to as the investigation incomplete. He argued that the Central Directorate of the Judicial Police (DCPJ) report unnoticed essential names and lacked scientific rigor. Regardless of his claims, no new credible proof has emerged to assist the courtroom reply the central query: Who orchestrated this crime?
Standing earlier than judges, prosecutors and a packed courtroom—together with 17 Colombian mercenaries additionally implicated within the crime—Badio, who as soon as labored for Haiti’s Ministry of Justice, insisted he was conscious of a coup plot towards Moïse however had no function within the homicide.
“I had no involvement within the president’s assassination,” Badio mentioned. “All the pieces mentioned is nonsense, besides one truth: the president was assassinated.”
The assassination stays one among Haiti’s most advanced legal instances in recent times, involving a number of international locations, notably the USA and Colombia. Regardless of almost 50 indictments, no trial has taken place in Haiti, even after greater than 40 arrests. In the meantime, within the U.S., at the least 5 people linked to the case have been convicted and sentenced to life in jail.
Badio’s listening to comes because the Haitian judiciary faces rising criticism over its dealing with of the case, with issues that influential figures stay shielded from scrutiny and accountability.
The listening to marked almost 4 years since Moïse was killed at his residence in Pèlerin, Pétion-Ville, on July 7, 2021, in an operation involving Colombian mercenaries and Haitian People. The investigation in Haiti stays clouded by political turmoil, worsening gang violence and the autumn of two prime ministers, Claude Joseph and Ariel Henry.
Badio questions lacking names and safety failures
Badio, who was arrested in October 2023 after two years on the run, claimed the DCPJ investigation neglected crucial safety lapses. He pointed to the sudden substitute of Pétion-Ville’s police commissioner simply two days earlier than the assassination, suggesting it was a deliberate transfer that warranted additional scrutiny.
“Many near the president ought to have been questioned,” Badio mentioned. “Why weren’t the brokers liable for his safety affected?”
“Sure people are being protected to keep up their pursuits,” Badio claimed. Regardless of his claims, he supplied no new proof and refused to call who he believed orchestrated the assassination.
The previous Haiti Ministry of Justice worker additionally identified that two armored autos stationed on Pèlerin Street—the place Moïse lived—disappeared the evening of the homicide. The officers in these autos weren’t named within the DCPJ report, elevating suspicions of inner involvement.
Moreover, the indicted Badio acknowledged talking with ex-Senator John Joël Joseph—one other plotter within the case sentenced to life within the U.S. federal jail—who allegedly informed him the plan was to take away Moïse from energy, not kill him. The plan was to exchange Moïse with Christian Emmanuel Sanon, he mentioned.
“The purpose was a coup, not an assassination,” Badio mentioned, claiming Moïse himself was conscious of the plot.
Badio claimed that paperwork recovered by the FBI from Moïse’s residence confirmed the president was conscious of discussions a few potential coup. He alleged that Senator Jean Hector Anacasis was the one who knowledgeable him.
Fugitive and ex-head of nationwide palace safety implicates U.S. Embassy and Léon Charles
Whereas Badio defended himself in courtroom, one other suspect—Dimitri Hérard, former head of the Nationwide Palace Common Safety Unit (USGPN)—launched two lengthy videos from hiding, presenting his model of occasions.
Hérard, who escaped from jail final 12 months throughout a gang assault on Haiti’s Nationwide Penitentiary, accused the U.S. Embassy in Haiti and former Haitian Nationwide Police chief Léon Charles of complicity in Moïse’s homicide.
He claimed the U.S. Embassy had prior information of the plot, citing an arrest warrant for Moïse that he says was signed and stamped by embassy officers.
The U.S. Embassy and Léon Charles knew what was coming, Hérard suggests.
Hérard additionally criticized Charles for failing to safe the crime scene and permitting the Colombian mercenaries to depart Moïse’s residence with out rapid pursuit.
“I believed Léon Charles would order a manhunt instantly. As an alternative, he handled it like simply one other occasion,” Hérard mentioned.
In keeping with the ex-head of the USGPN, Charles met with then-Prime Minister Claude Joseph simply minutes after Moïse’s assassination, reportedly stating that “all the things was below management.”
Like Badio, Hérard claimed Moïse was the goal of a number of coup makes an attempt earlier than his assassination. He cited a November 2020 incident the place he was approached by people—together with former U.S. diplomat Daniel Whitman and Haitian police inspector Marie-Louise Gauthier—providing him $3.5 million to assist a coup.
Moïse reportedly instructed Hérard to go together with the plot to assemble proof, resulting in the arrests of a number of conspirators on Feb. 7, 2021.
Hérard claimed that Charles, as director normal, knew in regards to the deliberate coup on Feb. 7, 2021, however downplayed the risk and failed to tell the president. In an interview with Radio Métropole, Charles acknowledged being conscious of the plot. He recalled that one of many alleged conspirators, Mario Beauvois, informed him U.S. officers favored him and had even provided him the place of prime minister—a suggestion Charles dismissed as a joke.
“I knowledgeable the president, and he mentioned he was conscious. I knowledgeable U.S. Ambassador Michele Sison, and he or she informed me, ‘Don’t fear about that.’ At that second, we not targeted on it,” Charles mentioned on Radio Métropole.
Hérard additional claimed that in a police raid at Petit-Bois, a locality in northeast Port-au-Prince, to arrest plotters, Charles and one other officer, Frederick Lecomte, tampered with proof they didn’t ship to prosecutors.
Martine Moïse calls on Trump to declassify FBI information
As new allegations emerge, former First Woman Martine Moïse has renewed requires transparency.
On Feb. 10, she publicly requested U.S. President Donald J. Trump to declassify FBI and State Division paperwork associated to her husband’s assassination.
“In the present day, the perpetrators of this heinous act management the Government and Judiciary branches of presidency and are ruling Haiti with the gangs,” the widow wrote on X.
She additionally urged Haiti to nominate a major minister able to dismantling gangs and organizing free elections.
“The Haitian folks need justice, peace, and alternative,” she added.
With new allegations surfacing and key suspects nonetheless at giant, the assassination of Jovenel Moïse stays an unresolved case that continues to shake Haiti’s political and judicial panorama.