New Arrests, But Even More Unanswered Questions Over Haitian President's Slaying

More than six months after Haitian President Jovenel Moise was assassinated by a hit squad of mercenaries, there have been a flurry of arrests of suspects in different countries, but the motive for the crime and its sponsors remain unknown.

And the investigation in Port-au-Prince itself seems to have stalled, illustrating serious dysfunction in the judicial system of the impoverished Caribbean country.

Moise was shot dead in his private residence in Port-au-Prince on the night of July 6-7, 2021, apparently by a commando made up of Colombians. Since the beginning of 2022, the US Justice Department has charged two men in Miami for their alleged role in this assassination.

One of them is Colombian national Mario Palacios, who is suspected of being one of five armed men who entered the room where the leader was killed.

He was arrested on January 3 in Panama, during a stopover on a flight from Jamaica.

The other was Rodolphe Jaar, a Haitian-Chilean citizen, was appeared in a court in Miami on Thurday after being arrested in the Dominican Republic. According to a document on file with the FBI, Jaar admitted during an interview in December to having provided weapons and ammunition to the group of Colombians.

"The United States has a mechanism to prosecute people who have participated in conspiracies on US territory even if these conspiracies have been hatched for crimes committed outside US soil: it's a good thing," said Marie-Rosy Auguste Ducena, a lawyer within the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights of Haiti.

The Colombian mercenaries were recruited by the CTU security firm based in Miami, and several meetings between the suspects took place in Florida before the deadly attack.

Philippe Larochelle, lawyer for Joverlein Moise, the son of the slain president, said he remained cautious in the face of these charges.

"In what form will they have to answer for their actions in the United States, that remains to be seen," said the Montreal-based lawyer. "We are in the early stages."

It only took a few hours for Haitian police to arrest the 20 former Colombian soldiers and two Haitian-American citizens who were allegedly members of the commando that assassinated the 53-year-old president.

Locked up in prison in the Haitian capital, these Colombians have not yet been questioned by the examining magistrate.

The decision of magistrate Garry Orelien to release, at the start of this month, four Haitian police officers suspected of complicity has also caused confusion, with Ducena going as far as accusing the magistrate of "indulging in acts of corruption."

An extradition request made by the Haitian authorities for a suspect arrested in Turkey in November has not yet had any results. It is unclear whether such a move has been made against John Joel Joseph, a former opposition senator arrested last week in Jamaica for his alleged role in the president's assassination.

Although Moise was unpopular and widely accused of authoritarian excesses, his assassination shocked the entire nation, and many questions remain unanswered.

Following is an incomplete list:

How was the armed commando able to get into the presidential residence without meeting any resistance from the specialized units responsible for the head of state's security?

What role did Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a 63-year-old Haitian based in Florida and currently in prison, play after arriving in the country in June with the Colombian nationals?

Where is the former judge at the Court of Appeals, Wendelle Coq Thelot, who is suspected of being part of the plot and who is the subject of a manhunt?

Why would the current Prime Minister Ariel Henry have spoken by telephone, the very day of the attack, with Joseph Felix Badio, one of the main suspects? When a prosecutor sought his indictment, Henry called the move a diversion, before firing him and appointing a new attorney general.

"Who paid for the assassination to be carried out? This is the aspect that should have been investigated by the judicial police," said Ducena.

"The main officials and sponsors are still in the shadows", said Larochelle, who believes that a special tribunal, like the one set up after the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, is "the only viable alternative" for his client, who only asks "to know who are the people responsible for his father's death."