Photo: RODRIGO ABD/AP/PICTURE ALLIANCE / copyright
youHaitian-American threes and a Colombian were extradited to the United States this Tuesday (01.31.2023) for his role in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021, the US authorities announced.
The four men, who were being held in Haiti, will appear Wednesday before a federal judge in Miami, who will hand down charges against them, according to a Justice Department statement.
Months ago, three other men were already transferred to the United States to be prosecuted for this murder.
Jovenel Moïse, 53, was shot dead by an armed commando in July 2021 at his private residence in Port-au-Prince, without the intervention of his bodyguards.
His death further aggravated the chaos in this poor little Caribbean country.
Haitian police quickly arrested about forty suspectsincluding twenty former Colombian soldiers, recruited according to them by a Florida-based security firm, CTU.
The US justice, competent to judge the conspiracies hatched in its territory, took charge of the case.
“Conspiracy to Commit Murder”
The suspects extradited this Tuesday are Haitian-Americans James Solages, 37, and Joseph Vincent, 57, as well as Colombian Germán Rivera, 44, accused of “conspiracy to commit murder or kidnapping outside United States territory.”
Also appears Christian Sanon, a 54-year-old man with US-Haitian dual citizenship and “political ambitions” in Haiti who is accused of “illegal export of goods from the United States.”
Specifically, the US justice accuses Solages and Sanon of having spoken, during a meeting in Florida in April 2021, of a regime change in Haiti.
At the end of the meeting they shared a list of weaponsincluding rifles, machine guns and grenades.
A month later, Christian Sanon ordered equipment for his “private militia,” a force of about twenty Colombians led by Germán Rivera and supposed to guarantee his safety in Haiti.
In June, it sent about twenty bulletproof vests to Haiti without complying with US customs formalities.
According to the US authorities James Solages, Joseph Vincent and German Rivera met on July 6, 2021 near the president’s house to distribute weapons and the first announced that the objective of the mission was to kill Jovenel Moïse.
The three men are exposed to life imprisonment and Christian Sanon to 20 years in prison.
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