Haiti’s last elected president, Jovenel Moise, was in his bedroom in the early hours of July 7, 2021, when attackers burst in and riddled him with bullets, prosecutors say. He suffered 12 gunshot wounds to his face, chest and limbs, and died instantly.
Now, after a delay of almost three years, the trial of four men accused of conspiring to assassinate Mr. Moise is beginning in Miami, with opening statements expected on Tuesday.
An indictment by U.S. prosecutors originally accused 11 men in a plot that included a team of former Colombian soldiers hired by a South Florida security firm.
Mr. Moise’s killing plunged Haiti into chaos, with armed gangs seizing control of large parts of the capital and triggering a humanitarian crisis.
Of the 11, five pleaded guilty and have been sentenced to life in prison. A sixth person pleaded guilty to a charge of providing body armor to the conspirators and was sentenced to nine years. The trial of one defendant was postponed for medical reasons. The remaining four are being tried in Miami.
Most of the Colombian soldiers are jailed in Haiti, charged in a separate case.
The U.S. trial is narrowly focused on a handful of defendants with ties to South Florida, and some experts say that may leave some important questions about the crime unanswered.
“The Haiti side of the equation is glaringly absent,” said Jake Johnston, a Haiti expert with the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. DC, who has examined the evidence pro bono on behalf of one of the defendant
Who are the defendants?
The trial centers on the actions of a small, Miami-area security firm, Counter Terrorist Unit Federal Academy, or C.T.U., and its co-owners, Antonio Intriago, a Venezuelan American, and Arcangel Pretel Ortiz, who is Colombian. Prosecutors say they hired the Colombian mercenaries.
Also accused are a business partner, Walter Veintemilla, an Ecuadorean American, who prosecutors say helped finance C.T.U.’s work in Haiti, and James Solages, a Haitian American security officer.
A fifth defendant, a Haitian American pastor, Christian Sanon, will be tried separately after undergoing surgery last month for colon cancer.
All five have been detained since their arrests and are accused of conspiracy to kidnap and kill a person outside the United States. If convicted, they face life in prison.
In Haiti, the list of defendants is much longer and includes a former Supreme Court judge, a former Justice Ministry official, two high-ranking members of the president’s security detail and several police officers.
Of the team of mercenaries, three died in a gun battle the night of Mr. Moise’s killing, 17 are jailed in Haiti and two were extradited to the United States, pleaded guilty, and were sentenced to life in prison. They are expected to testify in the Miami case.
Why was Mr. Moise Killed?
Mr. Moise was nearing the end of his presidency and was deeply unpopular when he was killed, accused of corruption and human rights abuses. In February 2021, he avoided a first attempt to kill him after Haitian authorities say the conspirators could not obtain enough firearms.
Martine Moise, Mr. Moise’s wife, was shot in the arm and survived. She is expected to testify that she heard men speaking Spanish during the killing, though she never saw their faces.
Prosecutors say that the security firm retained the Colombian mercenaries as part of a scheme to gain access to lucrative government contracts in Haiti. The plan originally involved arresting Mr. Moise and turning him over to the United States, but it then morphed into an assassination plot, according to court documents. (Mr. Moise was not under investigation in the United States or Haiti and was considered a U.S. ally.)
Though defense lawyers concede that the security firm hired the mercenaries, they say their clients had no knowledge of an assassination plot. Their clients, defense lawyers say, were merely providing security for what they believed to be a legal arrest of Mr. Moise for crimes of corruption and abuse of power.
Mr. Intriago’s lawyers say he was at a barbecue in Texas the night of the killing and was unaware of the attack until hours later.
“At some point, a group of Haitians decided that they were going to murder the president,” said Emmanuel Perez, a lawyer for Mr. Intriago. “My client had no idea about any of that. ”
What evidence will be examined?
The jury will be shown crime scene photos as well as video from a drone that for unknown reasons was flying over the president’s residence that night. The video captured flashes of gunfire and men moving in the street outside the president’s house before trying to make their getaway.
Prosecutors are also expected to present forensic evidence from bullet fragments that they say matches at least one of the weapons used by the mercenaries.
An arrest warrant for Mr. Moise was found at the scene signed by a Haitian judge, which the South Florida security firm said they believed to be legitimate. However, the judge, Jean Noelcius, testified in a recent video deposition that he signed it under duress and did not have the authority to do so.
“They needed an arrest warrant,” Judge Noelcius told the court. “They used me like a puppet.”
The prosecution’s evidence also includes a video from one of the security firm’s own security cameras in which Mr. Solages can be heard telling Mr. Intriago and Mr. Pretel that “Jovenel is not leaving the country alive.’’
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