Assassination Of Haiti President: The Inside Story

Haiti’s President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated by armed assailants who stormed his private residence in the capital, Port-au-Prince, on 7 July.

Here is what we know so far.

What happened?

A group of gunmen broke into the home of President Moïse in the Pelerin neighbourhood at 01:00 local time (05:00 GMT) on Wednesday 7 July.

They shot the President 12 times. Mr Moïse was found lying on his back, his shirt soaked in blood, with his left eye gouged out, a magistrate said. He had bullet wounds to his forehead, and several to his torso. He died at the scene.

The First Lady, Martine Moïse, was also shot but survived. She has been airlifted to Florida, in the US, and is said to be in a stable condition.

The couple’s adult daughter, Jomarlie Moïse, hid in her brother’s bedroom and was unhurt. She and her two brothers are in “safe locations”, officials said.

How did the attackers get in?

Video footage, which has not been independently verified but which is thought to have been taken as the assailants entered the property, shows armed men dressed in black arriving in white SUVs.

A man appears to have been forced to lie face down in the street while another man can be heard shouting in English over loudspeaker “DEA [US Drug Enforcement Administration} operation, everybody stay down!”

Haiti’s ambassador to the US, Bocchit Edmond, said that while the attackers had disguised themselves as US drug agents, he believed there was “no way” they really were US agents.

How did the assailants flee the scene?

Haiti’s police chief announced some 24 hours after Mr Moïse’s assassination that a fierce gun battle was under way in the Pelerin neighbourhood.

“We blocked [the suspects] en route as they left the scene of the crime. Since then, we have been battling them” Chief Léon Charles said without specifying an exact timeline.

The police chief also said officers had managed to free three policeman who had been taken hostage by the gunmen. He originally said four suspects had been killed in the gun battle, but that number has since been revised down to three.

Who are the suspects?

Haitian police say there are:

28 suspects in total, of which

17 have been apprehended

3 have been killed

8 remain at large

What’s the motive?

Haitian officials are convinced that the men arrested are mercenaries and that they were paid to kill the president.

They say their priority now is to find the “mastermind” behind the assassination.

Acting Prime Minister Claude Joseph said President Moïse had opposed ”some oligarchs in the country, and we believe those things are not without consequences″. However he did not elaborate further on his suspicions.

There is no question that Mr Moïse, who was a banana exporter before running for office, made many enemies during his time as president.

His critics accused him of embezzlement and of using gangs to intimidate his opponents, charges which he rejected.

In 2018, there were widespread protests when he tried to raise fuel prices, and earlier this year a dispute over the length of his term saw powerful figures calling for him to step down.

The fact that he had ruled by decree for the past year-and-a-half after the country failed to hold parliamentary elections as planned in October 2019 triggered accusations that he was turning increasingly autocratic.

His plan to hold a constitutional referendum further incensed those who accused him of wanting to increase the power of the executive.

But when he said in February that an attempt to kill him and overthrow his government had been foiled, many dismissed it as a smoke-screen to divert attention away from the growing discontent in Haiti.

After all, despite all the political instability Haiti has lived through, the last time a Haitian president was assassinated while in office was in 1915, more than 100 years ago. BBC