A key suspect in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse who was arrested on an immigration violation in Jamaica has been deported to his native Colombia.
Mario Palacios Palacios flew out of Kingston’s Norman Manley International Airport Monday to South America after Haiti failed to get him extradited to Port-au-Prince and a judge in Jamaica ordered his deportation to Colombia. Palacios was arrested in Kingston in October after surrendering.
There are no charges facing Palacios in Colombia, where upon landing he could be a free man unless the Haitian government were to update an INTERPOL Red Notice that it first filed against Palacios on Oct. 21, 2021, after his arrest in Jamaica. With that request, authorities in Colombia would have to detain Palacios upon his arrival in Bogotá. But as of Monday afternoon there was no indication that Haiti had done so.
Palacios was the first of two suspects on the run to be arrested within weeks of each other. The second, Haitian-Palestinian businessman Samir Handal, was caught in November at the Istanbul airport after arriving on a Turkish Air flight from Miami. The subject of an extradition request from Haiti, he remains in Turkey, where his case is before the courts.
Palacios, known as “Floro,” is accused of being one of the main executors of the plan leading to Moïse’s still-unsolved July 7 assassination, according to a Haitian police report obtained by the Miami Herald. He was believed to be among 26 Colombians and two Haitian Americans who made up a hit squad that stormed the president’s private residence in the middle of the night, claiming to be part of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration operation. After gaining access to the residence, the heavily armed commandos tortured Moïse and shot him multiple times, according to the police investigation.
In the aftermath, two Colombian soldiers were killed and 18 were arrested along with others. Those captured are currently confined in a Port-au-Prince prison, awaiting formal charges as an investigative judge in Haiti conducts a probe.
The fact that Palacios, like his fellow Colombians, has not been formally charged may have played a role in Jamaica’s failure to adhere to a request by Haitian authorities to extradite him even though the two Caribbean nations do not have an extradition agreement. Shortly after Palacios’ arrest, then-Haitian Foreign Minister Claude Joseph had requested Palacios’ extradition on the basis that he was implicated in Moïse’s assassination. But the police warrant did not actually link him to the assassination. It said he was a suspect in an attempted armed robbery.
After Palacios was found guilty of illegal entry into Jamaica and a deportation order was issued against him on Nov. 5, 2021, Palacios’ defense attorney, Carolyn Reid Cameron, argued there was no lawful basis under which to detain him any longer and asked for his immediate release. Instead, the judge ruled that he should be deported to Colombia.
Jamaican Attorney General Marlene Malahoo Forte told the news media that Haiti’s government had failed to supply the required evidence, which made it difficult to justify Palacios’ further detention under Jamaican law since he was not charged with any offense.
“Furthermore what was supplied to us by Haiti did not meet any legal threshold,” she said.
Haiti’s new foreign minister, Jean Victor Geneus, however, told the Herald that he was only contacted by a Jamaican official on Dec. 30.
“She told me that the judiciary authorities of her country will request additional information about the extradition demand regarding Mr. Palacios. On January 1st, we were informed of the decision of the tribunal to deport him to Colombia,” he said, not saying who the official was. “The Haitian authorities were not given time to react to the prosecutor’s new demands.”
Haiti Justice Minister Berto Dorcé also told the Herald that he never received a formal demand from Jamaica seeking information on the accusations against Palacios.
“Never,” he said, adding that the government had hired an outside consultant on international law to examine the question of extradition in regard to the Jamaican case. “Not one correspondence.”
Jamaica Justice Minister Delroy Chuck did not respond to several messages seeking comment.
After the slaying that left Moïse dead and his wife, Martine Moïse, seriously injured, Palacios became a fugitive and was among several key suspects being sought by Haitian police. Though a wanted poster had been issued days after the murder, it was only after Palacios’ arrest in Jamaica that Haitian authorities filed the initial INTERPOL Red Notice, alerting law enforcement worldwide that he was wanted and should be located and provisionally arrested pending extradition.
Palacios’ deportation to Colombia raises questions about the fate of the ongoing probe, which has been slow and stymied by allegations of political interference and questions about the handling of evidence by the police. One of the 44 suspects arrested in all, Gilbert Dragon, a police chief and former guerrilla commander, died in November from COVID-19-related complications after authorities failed to get him timely medical assistance, according to the family and a local human rights organization.
Other suspects have also tested positive, while at least one of the Colombians also contracted tuberculosis, according to a source.
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