At least 17 suspects have been detained in connection with the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise on Wednesday, including two who are believed to have dual US-Haitian citizenship and at least six former Colombian military members, authorities said on Thursday.
Haitian National Police Director Leon Charles said that 15 of the detainees were Colombians.
Eight more suspects were being sought and three others were killed by police, Charles said.
Photo: AP
“We are going to bring them to justice,” he told a news conference with the 17 handcuffed suspects sitting on the floor.
Seperately in Taipei, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Haitian police on Thursday detained 11 armed suspects apparently connected with the case while they were trying to breach the Taiwanese embassy in Port-au-Prince.
Police were alerted by the embassy’s security guards, it said, adding that some doors and windows at the embassy were broken during the arrest.
The Colombian government said it had been asked about six of the suspects, including two of those killed, and had determined that they were retired members of its military.
Bogota did not release their identities.
Colombian National Police Director Jorge Luis Vargas Valencia said that Colombian President Ivan Duque had ordered the high command of the country’s military and police to cooperate in the investigation.
“A team was formed with the best investigators... They are going to send dates, flight times, financial information that is already being collected to be sent to Port-au-Prince,” Vargas said.
The US Department of State said it was aware of reports that Haitian-Americans were in custody, but could not confirm or comment.
They were identified by Haitian officials as James Solages and Joseph Vincent.
Solages, 35, is the youngest of the suspects, while the oldest is 55, according to a document shared by Mathias Pierre, the head of the Haitian authority overseeing elections.
Pierre would not provide further information on those in custody, it said.
Solages described himself as a “certified diplomatic agent,” advocate for children and budding politician on a Web site for a charity he started in 2019 in south Florida to assist people in the Haitian coastal town of Jacmel.
The Web site said that Solages previously worked as a bodyguard at the Canadian embassy in Haiti. Canada’s foreign relations department, Global Affairs Canada, released a statement that did not refer to Solages by name, but said that one of the men detained for his alleged role in the killing had been “briefly employed as a reserve bodyguard” at its embassy by a private contractor.
Witnesses said that a crowd discovered two of the suspects on Thursday hiding in bushes in Port-au-Prince, and some people grabbed the men by their shirts and pants, pushed them and occasionally slapped them.
An Associated Press journalist saw officers put the pair in the back of a truck and drive away as the crowd ran after them to a nearby police station.
“They killed the president. Give them to us. We’re going to burn them,” people chanted outside.
The crowd later set fire to several abandoned vehicles riddled with bullet holes that they believed belonged to the suspects.
Later, Charles urged people to stay calm and let his officers do their work.
He cautioned that authorities needed evidence that was being destroyed, including the burned vehicles.
Officials have given little information on the killing of Moise, other than to say that the attack was carried out by “a highly trained and heavily armed group.”
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