Four more men have been charged in the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse after they were transferred to US custody Tuesday, according to the US Department of Justice.
Colombian citizen German Alejandro Rivera Garcia and dual Haitian-American citizens James Solages and Joseph Vincent are accused of “conspiring to commit murder or kidnapping outside the United States and providing material support and resources resulting in death,” the DoJ wrote in a release published Tuesday.
A third Haitian-American, Dr. Christian Emmanuel Sanon, was charged with “conspiring to smuggle goods from the United States and cause export information not to be filed.”
The four suspects, who are expected to make their first appearance in federal court at 2:00 p.m. Wednesday in Miami, join three other men who have spent months in prison awaiting trial for their alleged role in the assassination plot against Moïse.
The DoJ claims that in early 2021, some of the suspects met in South Florida to discuss their plans to effect “regime change” in Haiti by toppling Moïse and replacing him with Sanon. Prosecutors say the suspects then plotted to acquire the “equipment and weapons needed for the regime change operation,” including “rifles, machine guns, tear gas, grenades, ammunition, bulletproof vests, and other weapons and equipment.”
According to US authorities, Sanon circumvented the law when he “conspired with others to ship 20 ballistic vests for use by his private military forces from South Florida to Haiti on June 10, 2021.”
Weeks later, the DoJ claims that “support for President Moïse’s replacement shifted” from Sanon to a former Haitian Supreme Court judge who they say “signed a document requesting assistance to further the arrest and imprisonment of President Moïse” as well as “a document purportedly signed by that Judge claimed to provide immunity in Haiti to those who participated in the operation.”
Finally, on July 6, “Solages, Vincent, Rivera and others met at a house near President Moïse’s residence, where firearms and equipment were distributed and Solages announced that the mission was to kill President Moïse,” prosecutors allege.
The next day, Moïse would ultimately be assassinated after a hit squad reportedly broke into his residence, beat him severely, and shot him multiple times.
The political chaos and dysfunction that’s plagued Haiti due to centuries of foreign interference has only worsened in the time since. After reports that the US was considering sending troops to Haiti as part of a so-called “international intervention,” viral footage emerged showing Haitians waving tricolor flags calling on the Russian Federation to protect them from any such intervention.