Four south Florida men convicted in Haitian president’s assassination | Haiti
Four South Florida men were convicted Friday of plotting to kill Haitian President Jovenel Moïse by hiring mercenaries to assassinate him at his home in Port-au-Prince in 2021, according to court records.
Prosecutors argued during the nine-week trial in Miami federal court that the men gathered two dozen former Colombian soldiers and provided them with money, guns, ammunition and tactical vests to kill Moïse. The 53-year-old president was shot to death at his private residence in the hills above Port-au-Prince in July 2021; A murder that left a huge political vacuum in the Caribbean country and emboldened powerful gangs.
At the hearing were Arcangel Pretel Ortiz, 53, a former FBI informant, Colombian citizen and permanent U.S. citizen; Antonio Intriago, 62, Venezuelan-American owner of a security firm; James Solages, 40, a Haitian-American mechanic; and Walter Veintemilla, a 57-year-old Ecuadorian American.
They were convicted of multiple counts of conspiracy to murder and kidnap a person outside the United States, resulting in death, and of providing material support or resources to commit a violation resulting in death.
All four men face life imprisonment.
The fifth defendant, Haitian-born doctor Christian Emmanuel Sanon (court documents say he wanted to be elected president after Moïse’s murder), will be tried later due to health problems.
The murder sparked multiple investigations and indictments in Haiti and the United States, as well as competing theories about who ordered the assassination and why.
Defense attorneys for the Florida men said the government used unreliable evidence from Haiti, the Miami Herald reported. They argued that their clients only intended to issue an arrest warrant because the President was beyond his term of office.
The defendants also claimed that Moïse was killed by his own security forces and officials in his government when the Colombians came to arrest him.
“This is a Haitian conspiracy and a Haitian conspiracy,” defense attorney Emmanuel Perez said, arguing that the men were being used as scapegoats in a flawed FBI investigation, according to the Miami Herald. reported.
The death of Moïse, one of the separatist figures in Haiti who refused to leave office after his term ended in February 2021, increased the Caribbean country’s political instability and unleashed widespread gang violence.
Jake Johnston of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington said it would be a “misconception” that the trial would address all questions about the murder.
“The Miami team is just a small sliver,” said the relevant center study. “There are a lot of people accused in Haiti. The big picture is that we’re not going to get the full story here.”
