Haitian Police Arrest Florida Doctor, One of Suspected Masterminds Behind Moise’s Assassination
01:38 GMT 12.07.2021 (Updated: 13:20 GMT 06.08.2022)
© REUTERS / RICARDO ARDUENGO
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MEXICO CITY (Sputnik) - One of the alleged masterminds behind the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise has been arrested, Police Director Leon Charles said.
"The first person they called when the bandits' advance was blocked was Emmanuel Sanon," Charles told reporters on Sunday, as quoted by Acento.
According to police, Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a doctor from the US state of Florida, has been arrested. Two other people "implicated in the intellectual authorship of the murder," are being searched for, Charles said.
Sanon, who is of Haitian descent, has lived in South Florida for more than 20 years, and is now the third person tied to the Sunshine State to be arrested in connection with Moise's assassination, the Miami Herald reported. The other two suspects, known as James Solages and Joseph Vincent, reportedly told authorities that Moise's assassination was part of a plot to install the doctor as president of Haiti.
A man walks past in front of where the Haitian Presidential Palace used to be with the Haitian national flag at half-mast, following the assassination of President Jovenel Moise, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti July 10, 2021.
© REUTERS / RICARDO ARDUENGO
What's more interesting, Solages was "briefly employed as a reserve bodyguard" at the Canadian Embassy in Haiti, reports say. As for Vincent, it is only known so far that he has lived in Miami.
Investigators believe that Sanon was in contact with a Venezuelan security company based in the United States — presumably, it organized the recruitment of the Colombians who are now being accused of killing Moise.
According to the Haitian police, a group of 26 Colombians and two Americans of Haitian descent are suspected of having carried out the assassination of President Moise in his home in Port-au-Prince in the early hours of Wednesday, July 7. The National Police said on Friday that 18 Colombian and two American suspects had been detained.
According to Colombian media reports, the head of Moise’s security guard, Dimitri Herard, often traveled to Colombia and is expected to explain his frequent trips to Ecuador with stopovers in Bogota during an upcoming interrogation this week.
The dates of Herard’s latest trips reportedly correspond to the time when the final details of Moise’s assassination were discussed.
FILE PHOTO: Haiti's President Jovenel Moise speaks during an interview with Reuters at the National Palace of Port-au-Prince, Haiti January 11, 2020. REUTERS/Valerie Baeriswyl/File Photo
© REUTERS / Valerie Baeriswyl
Moise, who ruled the country from 2017, sustained twelve wounds to his body during the fatal shooting in Port-au-Prince's Petion-Ville suburb on July 7. Haiti's interim prime minister said that the late president was tortured before his death at the hands of the alleged mercenaries.
9 July 2021, 21:25 GMT
His wife, Martine Moise, was severely wounded in the stomach and airlifted to a hospital in Miami for treatment. She is currently in stable condition. On Saturday, a voice message was released on her Twitter account, in which the widow said that her husband was killed by mercenaries because of his development projects, and plans to organize a constitutional referendum and presidential and legislative elections. However, The Haitian Times reported that the recording could be fake, creating even more mystery surrounding Moise's death.
The Juno7 news agency, in turn, reported that none of the president's guards who were with him in the residence during the attack were injured.
The assailants who killed Moise at his private residence earlier in the day claimed to be with the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Miami Herald newspaper reported, citing videos taken by people near the president's home. US State Department spokesperson Ned Price at a press briefing said reports of DEA's involvement are "absolutely false."
