Haiti’s interim prime minister, Claude Joseph, has been investigated as a suspect for killing President Jovenel Moïse in order to seize power, Colombian press reports say. Joseph has effectively taken command of the land since Moses’ death at dawn on the 7th.
The investigation was revealed on Wednesday (14) by the news channel Caracol, in Colombia – more than 20 former Colombian soldiers are involved in the assassination of the president, according to the Haitian police, of which 18 are in prison and 3 were you are.
Claude Joseph will cease to be prime minister the day Moïse is killed. Two days earlier, the president had appointed a new prime minister, the seventh in four years, Ariel Henry, who was to replace Joseph in the fourth. With the death of the president, the exchange did not take place.
Haitian authorities and FBI (US Federal Police) investigators consider Joseph, former Senator John Joël Joseph, on the run, and Doctor Christian Sanon to be the masterminds of the crime, according to the Colombian press.
The assassination began to be planned in November 2020 at the headquarters of the security company CTU Security, in Miami, United States, during a meeting between the alleged masterminds, a Haitian diplomat, two Colombian leaders of the scheme and the owner of CTU. , depending on the TV. The goal would be to kidnap Moise to put Claude Joseph in charge.
To arrive at these names, the investigation analyzed the phone calls and the photos of this meeting which connect the Prime Minister to the CTU, the company which would have hired the Colombian mercenaries implied in the crime. Claude Joseph’s involvement was detailed in the testimonies of the imprisoned soldiers, according to TV Caracol.
According to the investigation, CTU and other investigated security companies contacted at least 200 retired Colombian military personnel to offer them employment in the Caribbean. Almost all rejected the proposal, but the commanders managed to recruit a squad of 21 men, most of them trained by Colombian special security forces. Of this group, according to the Colombian press, only seven knew that the real mission was to kidnap the president.
This detail was admitted by the President of Colombia, Ivan Duque, in an interview with local radio on Thursday. “There was a large group that was taken on a suspected protection mission, but among them there was a smaller group that apparently knew in detail that it was a criminal operation,” Duque said. on the radio FM.
The operation began on May 6, when Colombian project leaders disembarked in the Dominican Republic, a country neighboring Haiti, from Panama. On the same day, they met a Haitian diplomat by the surname Askard, according to Colombian television, who took care of obtaining visas for the military to enter Haiti, which happened four days later.
In Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, the Colombians stayed at the home of midfielder Christian Sanon, suspected of being one of the masterminds, near Moise’s residence. According to the testimonies of the arrested suspects, they met members of the Supreme Court of Justice of Haiti and prominent politicians such as former Senator John Joël Joseph, whom the group described as “triple J”, as well. than the Prime Minister himself.
At that meeting, the prime minister said, according to testimonies, that there would be a change of plan: the military should not kidnap the president, but kill him. He reportedly said that he would be the new president and that he would be responsible for ensuring the protection and work of Colombians. With the new plan, two soldiers refused to follow the plan and decided to return to Colombia, and the mission continued without them.
On June 4, the rest of the Colombian entrepreneurs arrived in the Dominican Republic by plane from Bogotá and entered Haiti by land. According to the television, most of them thought they would work as government bodyguards. In four weeks, they made the final adjustments to the mission, which was carried out on July 7, when seven Colombians and three Haitians invaded Moise’s house and murdered him.
Some of the retired Colombian servicemen accused of involvement in the assassination of Jovenel Moïse have received military training from the US Department of Defense, the Pentagon admitted Thursday.
“A review of our training databases indicated that a small number of Colombians detained as part of the investigation have participated in military training and education programs in the United States in the past while they were serving as active officers in the armed forces of Colombia, “Lt. Col. Ken Hoffman told Reuters news agency, without specifying their number.
It is common for US military personnel to train with security forces in the region, he said, adding that the training “emphasizes and promotes respect for human rights, enforcement. rule of law and the subordination of forces to democratically elected civilian leaders ”.