As the case drags on in Haiti due to death threats that have alarmed local judges, four significant suspects in the murder of Haitian President Jovenel Mose have been moved to the US for trial, US officials confirmed Tuesday.
James Solages, 37, and Joseph Vincent, 57, two Haitian-Americans who were among the first detained after Mose was shot 12 times in his private house outside of the city of Port-au-Prince on July 7, 2021, are among the suspects the US government is holding right now.
- Advertisement -
Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a senior preacher, physician, and unsuccessful businessman who police have identified as having a crucial role, is also accused. His colleagues have claimed that the true, as-of-yet undetermined masterminds behind the murder that has thrown Haiti’s government into disarray and sparked gang violence on a scale unseen in decades conned him.
Germán Rivera Garca, a 44-year-old Colombian citizen who is one of roughly 20 former soldiers accused in the case, has been named as the fourth suspect.
According to the US Justice Department, Rivera, Solages, and Vincent are accused with planning to conduct murder or kidnapping outside the US and of providing resources and material assistance that caused death.
Sanon is accused of plotting to transfer illegal information and smuggling commodities out of the US. According to court records, he is accused of sending 20 ballistic vests to Haiti, but the packages were labeled as “medical X-ray vests and school supplies.”
The existence of counsel for the four suspects who could provide a statement on the situation was not immediately known. The guys are due to appear in Miami federal court on Wednesday.
Seven suspects in the investigation are now being held in US custody. The main prison in Haiti still holds dozens of prisoners who are suffering from acute overcrowding as well as frequent food and water shortages.
In Haiti, the investigation has almost come to a stop. Last year, local officials nominated a fifth judge to look into the slaying after four others were fired or resigned for personal reasons.
According to one judge, his family implored him not to handle the case because they feared for his safety, the Associated Press said. After one of his subordinates passed away mysteriously, another judge resigned.
Rodolphe Jaar, a former US government informant and a businessman from Haiti who was deported from the Dominican Republic after being imprisoned there in January 2022, is one of the other individuals already in US custody.
In the same month, US agents detained Mario Antonio Palacios, a former Colombian soldier who had fled from Haiti and been sent back by Jamaica. He was apprehended in Panama by US authorities during a stopover while traveling to Colombia.
The former senator from Haiti, John Jol Joseph, who had also emigrated to Jamaica, was captured by the police in January 2022.
The arrival of the four more suspects on Tuesday, according to Palacios’ Miami-based attorney Alfredo Izaguirre, will force the trial to be postponed because they all need to be prosecuted concurrently.
