More than 44 individuals have been arrested in the ongoing investigation into who killed Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, Haiti National Police said Friday.
Among those taken into custody were a dozen police officers, including four who accompanied Colombian commandos say accompanied them as they entered Moïse’s hilltop home in the middle of the night on July 7, according to the commandos.
Haitian police have said as many as 26 Colombians stormed the president’s residence in an armed attack that left him dead and his wife, Martine, wounded. None of the president’s security agents were shot or killed. Police have not said how many agents in the president’s security detail were working the night of the attack.
The growing list of those arrested includes 18 Colombians, three Haitian Americans with ties to South Florida and six Haitian nationals. It also includes the 12 police officers, including the president’s security chief, Jean Laguel Civil.
Haiti police spokeswoman Michelle Verrier said while some of the cops were arrested because of their presence alongside the Colombians, others were arrested because they did not do what they were supposed to do on the night in question.
Verrier also gave some details on why police have issued a wanted poster for Supreme Court Justice Windelle Coq Thelot. She said Thelot conducted several meetings at her home ahead of the assassination, and that some of the Colombians in custody have provided police investigators “with a lot of details” about documents the justice reportedly signed.
The documents, Verrier said, were provided by CTU Security, a Doral, Florida-based firm owned by a Venezuelan émigré linked to the assassination. Thelot’s whereabouts remain unknown, as do those of several other Haitian nationals for whom police have issued advisories.
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