Miami (AFP) – This Tuesday, December 19, the US Justice sentenced a former Haitian senator to life imprisonment accused of conspiring with other people to assassinate Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, on July 7, 2021, at his residence in Port-au-Prince.
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Joseph Joel John, 52, appeared in the morning before a federal court in Miami (Florida, USA) to hear the sentence.
Dressed in a brown prisoner's uniform and shackled, He addressed the court in French to explain that he had not wanted to kill Moïse, but rather to bring him before the Haitian Justice for his mismanagement at the head of the country.
When the other conspirators decided to assassinate the president, he could not back out for fear of dying, he assured Judge Jose Martinez.
“Magistrate, have pity on me,” he said, before asking forgiveness from the victim's relatives and the Haitian people for a “hateful crime that should never have happened.”
John had pleaded guilty in October to providing vehicles and other resources for the assassination, in addition to meeting several times with the other conspirators, both in Haiti and in South Florida.
The fact that part of the plot was hatched in Florida is what led the United States Justice Department to claim jurisdiction over this case, for which 11 people have been arrested and charged.
John is the third person convicted in the North American country for the murder. Before him, Rodolphe Jaar, a Haitian-Chilean businessman, and Germán Rivera, a retired Colombian Army officer, received life sentences this year.
On July 7, 2021, a commando of Colombian mercenaries shot dead Moïse, 53, in his private residence in Port-au-Prince without his bodyguards intervening.
According to the US Prosecutor's Office, two directors of a Miami security company planned to kidnap Moïse and replace him with Christian Sanon, a Haitian-American citizen who wanted to be president of the Caribbean country.
The objective of these instigators – the Venezuelan Antonio Intriago and the Colombian Arcángel Pretel Ortiz – was to sign lucrative contracts with a future government led by Sanon, also indicted in the United States.
Failing to kidnap Moïse, the conspirators decided to kill him.
Haiti has arrested 17 people for the murder, according to the Miami Herald, but none of them have been formally charged.
The small country, considered the poorest in America, has plunged into deep chaos since the death of its president. Armed gangs control 80% of Port-au-Prince, and violent crimes such as kidnappings, armed robberies and car thefts have skyrocketed.
The authorities have not held an election since 2016 and the Presidency has been vacant since Moïse's assassination.
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