In connection with President Jovenel Moïse’s July 2021 murder, authorities in Haiti have detained a new suspect.
The mayor of the seaside city of Jacmel in the south, Macky Kessa, was taken into custody but has not been prosecuted, according to his lawyer Jimmy Jean-Baptiste, who spoke to the news media.
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He stated that he intends to pursue Kessa’s release from the infamous National Penitentiary in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti.
The reason for Kessa’s detention was not immediately apparent. Reiterating that the inquiry is still underway, Jean-Baptiste declined to say more.
Kessa spoke with Judge Walther Wesser Voltaire, who is looking into the matter and has spoken with several other defendants who had been detained for longer than two years before the arrest took place.
Voltaire was the fifth judge to be assigned to the case; the other justices resigned for a variety of reasons, including concern for their lives.
Voltaire did not respond to a message asking for comment right away. He had previously said that he would not speak about the matter in public because it is still pending and there have been several hearings but no trial date set.
In this case, almost forty suspects have been taken into custody; many of them were apprehended soon after Moïse was shot dead at his home, in an incident that also left his wife, Martine Moïse, wounded.
Several high-ranking Haitian police officers and eighteen former Colombian soldiers are among those held on suspicion of involvement in the plot.
Eleven individuals have been extradited to the US, two of whom have already received sentences, while the case in Haiti continues.
Prosecutors in the United States have detailed a complex scheme involving defendants in South Florida and Haiti who sought to profit from large contracts under a Moïse successor following his kidnapping or murder.
