Haitian Police Arrest Top Suspect in Moise Assassination
A police spokesperson told Reuters on Thursday that Haitian police have arrested former justice official Joseph Felix Badio in connection with the assassination of President Jovenel Moise.
Investigators believe Badio directed the hitmen who carried out the July 2021 attack.
The death of Moise has thrown the Caribbean island nation into political chaos, with powerful gangs expanding their grip.
According to a witness at the incident, armed police stopped Badio as he drove out of a supermarket parking lot in Petion-Ville, a Port-au-Prince suburb, on Thursday afternoon.
Badio, who Haitian officials and rights groups believe is the key suspect in the assassination plan, has been charged with murder, attempted murder, and armed robbery.
Moise was gunned down in his bedroom by a gang of armed men who broke into his residence in the hills above Port-au-Prince.
According to police, the squad was largely made up of Colombian mercenaries, although numerous Haitians and Haitian Americans have also been accused of being involved in the murders.
Badio is accused by investigators of instructing the Colombian hitmen to carry out the horrific attack.
Others involved in the case, including former Haitian Senator Joseph Joel John and Haitian-Chilean businessman Rodolphe Jaar, have been convicted of murder in the United States.
Since the heinous assassination, the impoverished country’s unelected leadership has struggled to provide even the most basic services.
According to a U.N. report published Wednesday, Haiti’s gangs have taken on tasks such as administering schools and hospitals in place of an increasingly absent government, even as their illegal rackets let gang leaders gain fortune and terrorize victims.
The United Nations recently endorsed deploying an international force to assist Haiti’s police at the request of the government, but few nations have committed personnel, and the force has yet to materialize.
