A couple of days before a squad of Colombians joined forces with local police and two men posing as U.S. agents in a deadly attack against Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, first lady Martine Moïse went to the National Palace and spent nearly five hours clearing out her things.
Two days after the July 7, 2021, assassination, Martine Moïse told the palace’s secretary general that her husband “had not done anything for us” as president and she wanted to succeed him in office with the help of then-Prime Minister Claude Joseph.
Both incidents, as recalled by the secretary general, not only aroused suspicion about Martine Moïse but are now cited as evidence of her “complicity” by a Haitian investigative judge. He has charged Martine Moïse and nearly 50 others in the assassination conspiracy, according to the indictment obtained by the Miami Herald.
After more than two and half years and and the work of five judges, Haiti’s justice system is finally poised to take the next steps in the kidnapping-turned-assassination plot. Investigative Judge Walther Wesser Voltaire, the fifth magistrate and the one to spend the most time on the inquiry, has sent his 122-page order to a prosecutor who will now notify the individuals about the indictment. The next step will be for the chief justice to organize a trial.
Voltaire has decided not to pursue criminal charges against most of the 11 defendants named in a parallel U.S. indictment in Miami, citing double jeopardy. But the judge is moving ahead with charging Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a politically ambitious Haitian-American pastor named in the Miami case who is now accused of plotting a coup to rule Haiti that led to Moïse’s death. In the Haiti indictment, Sanon is described as the “intellectual author” of the assassination plot along with Joseph Félix Badio, a former government consultant.
In addition, Voltaire says there is enough evidence to charge 49 others, including the late president’s widow, who was wounded in the deadly assault, and several other close collaborators.
In the indictment, Voltaire notes that the former first lady not only refused two invitations to appear before the judge’s chambers to answer questions about her husband’s killing, but her statements about “are so ensnared by contradictions that they ultimately discredited themselves.” Voltaire also dismissed an Oct. 6, 2021, civil complaint filed by the former first lady in her husband’s assassination case.
In addition to Martine Moïse, the judge indicted Joseph and ex-Police Chief Léon Charles. Both were in office when Moïse was gunned down inside his home in the middle of the night. They are among 10 former government officials or allies of the president who, according to Voltaire, had “an active participation” in the events leading up to his shocking death.
In a statement to the Miami Herald, Joseph accused current Prime Minster of “weaponizing the Haitian justice system” by targeting him and the former first lady.
“Ariel Henry, the main beneficiary or the mastermind of the July 7th coup leading to the tragic killing of president Jovenel Moïse, is weaponizing the Haitian justice system, prosecuting political opponents like me. It’s a classic coup d’état. They failed to kill me and Martine Moïse on July 7th 2021, now they are using the Haitian justice system to advance their Machiavellian agenda,” he said. “The Haitian people, however, won’t be distracted. I will not give up my fight against a government that has been killing the Haitian people. Ariel Henry has to go because he has failed the Haitian people.”
Joseph and the other former officials and advisers were identified by Joseph Félix Badio. He provided details linking members of the president’s inner circle to the plot, according to the judge’s order. Arrested in September after spending two years on the lam, Badio claimed he was sent by former justice minister Rockfeller Vincent to infiltrate the plotters trying to take down the president. Badio was so good at this role, the former consultant claimed, that the plotters came to trust him as one of them.
While he denied any involvement in the actual assassination, Badio testified that many people wanted to get rid of Moïse and thus various interest groups had formed within the National Palace to achieve this. Besides the president’s wife, they included Ardouin Zéphirin, a trusted adviser, and Claude Joseph, the prime minister, according to Badio.
“Upon the departure of President Jovenel Moïse [Claude Joseph] would remain prime minister during the transition period and would organize elections in which the former first lady would stand as a candidate to be elected president of the Republic,” the judge said.
Like the parallel U.S. investigation, the Haiti inquiry doesn’t bring Haitians any closer to learning who masterminded the attack or which of the 60-odd guns seized by police on the morning of the assault fired the fatal shots.
Absent ballistic reports, Voltaire has had to rely on statements by witnesses and some of the accused to draw conclusions. He and Port-au-Prince Prosecutor Edler Guillaume note that in some cases, statements “were riddled with contradictions,” but that after an analysis of the evidence, they were able to “discover with insight the degree of participation” and the roles played by each person.
Guillaume, in a leaked 31-page criminal complaint, had earlier recommended that about 70 people be pursued for charges. Voltaire doesn’t name as many defendants in the final indictment.
In the case of some of the defendants, including several police officers who had been jailed in the aftermath of the assault, there wasn’t enough evidence to support their involvement, the judge said.
There also was insufficient evidence, Voltaire said, against the owner of a Port-au-Prince security firm, Reynaldo Corvington, and his son-in-law, Dominick Cauvin. The two had met with some of the co-conspirators at Corvington’s home before the assassination. The group, Corvington said, claimed to be working on behalf of the U.S. State Department and had a list of 30 Haitians they were pursing for money laundering, corruption and illicit drug and organ trafficking. There was no such operation.
Voltaire also said there wasn’t enough evidence to pursue charges against Antonio ‘Don Kato’ Cheramy, a well-known singer and fervent opponent of Moïse. Cheramy was among a group that had insisted the the president would not finish his term. His words were taken as a threat.
Also not recommended for charges were current Prime Minister Ariel Henry and former president Michel Martelly. Both testified about how they learned about the killing via phone calls, and denied any role. Martelly said he was in Miami when he received word from a friend. Martelly soon contacted his former prime minister and Moïse’s adviser, Laurent Lamothe, for confirmation. He also reached out to the head of Moïse’s security detail, Dimitri Hérard.
Lamothe would later report that the police chief, Léon Charles, said there was an ongoing operation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration taking place, and Hérard said he was having “logistics” problems in getting to the scene.
Henry, who has been accused by critics of being complicit in Moïse’s death because he was contacted by Badio, maintained his innocence. While insisting he still doesn’t remember receiving a call from Badio, a former government functionary, on the night Moïse was killed, Henry did shed light on his ascension. He accepted the prime minister’s job, he said, on July 3, during at which time Moïse had asked Joseph “to pass the burden” onto him.
Voltaire singled out Claude Joseph, Léon Charles and Ardouin Zéphirin, the latter such a close adviser to Moïse that the president chose him to participate in a meeting with Trump administration officials over his own cabinet ministers.
Voltaire described the former police chief’s conduct upon receiving a call of distress from Moïse as “reckless.” The judge noted that he did not make an effort to rush to the president’s aid with troops in tow. Guillaume, the prosecutor, went further, noting that for 18 minutes after the chief received an urgent plea for help, the president remained alive and the police reinforcements remained absent.
Voltaire noted that during one of several interrogations, Charles defended himself by pointing out that it was he who ordered Inspector General André Jonas Vladimir Paraison to go to the president’s aid. Paraison, the judge said, suggested during his own testimony “that he had gone there of his own accord after receiving a distress call from the president.”
How the accusations might affect Charles’ current role in the United States as Haiti’s representative to the Organization for American States is unclear. After Charles’ name surfaced in Guillaume’s report on people who should have charges filed against them, a senior Biden administration official said he would expect anyone under indictment to be recalled from service by Haiti.
As for Joseph, the then-prime minister, the judge notes that while Moïse’s assassins were causing havoc, Joseph was declaring to the nation that everything was under control. Meanwhile, he was so concerned for his own security that he summoned Charles, the police chief, to arrange for his protection even as the president was in grave jeopardy, the investigation found.
“Everyone knows that I am the main voice that has been asking for justice to be served in that case. So, weaponizing the Haitian justice system in that case against me is not a smart move,” said Joseph, who has been leading protests in Haiti against Henry. “Everyone understands what is hiding behind this. I won’t stop my fight. Justice must be served.”
As part of his order, Voltaire is asking that anyone not yet imprisoned, to be taken into custody. Under Haitian law, however, all who are being pursued for indictments have a right to file an appeal, which could delay matters into next year.
Initially Haitian investigators arrested 44 people, including 20 Colombians, 19 Haitian police officers and four individuals in civilian clothes. The Colombians have said they do not know who killed the president and have questioned the authenticity of his wife’s injuries during the attack.
Voltaire’s recommendations are the result of dozens of interrogations and after he visited the crime scene with FBI agents. He said it was clear that the first lady could not have hidden under the bed as she asserted.
Of the 11 defendants in the parallel U.S. investigation, five have pleaded guilty and face life sentences for conspiring to assassinate the president. A sixth defendant, Tampa-area businessman Frederick Bergmann, has also recently pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges. The maximum prison term under his plea deal is 10 years.
As with the U.S. investigation, there are unanswered question, including where is the firearm that sprayed the president with a dozen bullets.
Also, while U.S. investigators have been able to trace a $175,000 loan to CTU Security, a Miami-area security firm that paid the Colombians. Haiti still does not know who inside the country may have helped finance the coup. The country’s private banks have refused to cooperate with the inquiry.
Despite that, Voltaire said there was sufficient evidence to pursue charges against the head of the president’s security detail, Dimitri Hérard, and his boss, Jean Laguel Civil. Civil is accused of paying bribes to members of presidential security detail to either not show up to work, or to stand down on the day of the attack. He denied the allegations during his interrogation by the judge.
Upon arriving at the scene, Haitian investigators found plastic handcuffs, mallets, hoods and 399 cartridges of mostly 5.56 and 7.62 MM bullets. Not one of the police officers assigned to the president’s security detail was shot or even received as much a scratch, the inquiry notes.
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