Eighteen suspects in Haitian President Jovenel Moïse’s 2021 assassination are set to be extradited to the United States.
Jason Reding Quiñones, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, said that 30 suspects in the assassination had been indicted, and 18 of those were being transported to the U.S. in a military plane.
“Today marks the next major phase in our pursuit of accountability for the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. Our work did not end with the men who planned and carried out this assassination. We will follow the evidence wherever it leads, to those who financed it, facilitated it, supported it, or committed crimes to make it possible,” he said.
“Five years later, we are still bringing defendants before American courts, and we are not finished,” Quiñones added.
FBI Special Agent in Charge Brett Skiles said Moïse was assassinated by “individuals seeking to profit from illicit financial opportunities and business contracts.”
On the night of July 7, 2021, a heavily armed group of over two dozen commandos entered Moïse’s hilltop residence and easily made their way to his room. His body was found riddled with 12 bullet holes of various calibers, and his wife was severely wounded. She was rushed to the U.S. for treatment.
In the hours after the attack, the commando team was hunted down by Haitian police and soldiers. Four were killed, and within the next few days 18 were captured, out of an estimated team of 28. Of those, 26 were retired Colombian soldiers hired as mercenaries, and two were Haitian-Americans.
The shocking murder is widely cited as the official beginning of Haiti’s period of anarchy, with governmental authority all but completely collapsing. True power now lies in the hands of heavily armed gangs operating as warlords, who have carried out countless killings and massacres. They are in complete control of the capital and much of the countryside.
Moïse’s assassination is still shrouded in mystery over five years later. Exactly who planned and carried out the operation, what their actual goal was, the events surrounding the killing, and how the team was able to easily enter the president’s residence remain disputed. U.S. prosecutors believe the operation was planned and assisted from South Florida, and the lack of any fight from the president’s guards suggests an inside job.
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Despite the unknowns in the case, prosecutions have continued to the current day. At least 51 people have been indicted by Haiti over the killing, but none have been tried due to the collapse of central authority. All successful trials have taken place in the U.S., which has complained of the glacial pace of Haitian justice.
In the U.S., five defendants have already pleaded guilty this year and are serving life sentences. Another defendant accused of providing body armor to the assassination squad was sentenced to nine years in prison.