Florida Doctor Arrested as Mastermind of Haiti President’s Murder
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Haitian police have arrested a third American in connection with President Jovenel Moise's death, saying that he planned the assassination last week as part of a plot to install him as the Caribbean country's president.
On Sunday, Haiti’s police chief Léon Charles identified the man as Christian Emmanuel Sanon, who was in contact with a firm that provides security for politicians and recruited the suspects. They added that the suspect flew into Haiti with the assassins in early June, according to The Independent.
Charles said the men’s initial mission was to protect Sanon, but they later received a new one: arrest the president. He said the “operation started from there,” and an additional 22 suspects joined the group. Contact was made with Haitian citizens, he added.
He said the alleged killers were protecting Sanon as the supposed future president of Haiti.
Police officers found several items at his house, including a hat emblazoned with the logo of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, 20 boxes of bullets, gun parts, four automobile license plates from the Dominican Republic, two cars and correspondence with unidentified people.
Last week, Moise was shot dead while his wife, who was seriously wounded in an attack was flown to Miami and remains hospitalised.
The police chief said a total of 26 Colombians are suspected in the killing of the president and, of them, 18 have been arrested, along with three Haitians. He said five of the suspects are still at large and at least three have been killed.
“They are dangerous individuals. I’m talking commando, specialized commando,” said Charles while explaining that police are working with high-ranking Colombian officials to identify details of the alleged plot, including when the suspects left Colombia and who paid for their tickets.
The accused has lived in Broward County in Florida, and in Hillsborough County on the Gulf Coast. According to records, he has also lived in Kansas City, Missouri and filed for bankruptcy in 2013. Sanon identifies himself as a doctor in a video on YouTube titled “Leadership for Haiti”.
The announcement of his arrest was made hours after hundreds of Haitians sought solace in prayer at early Sunday church services as a political power struggle threatened to further destabilize their fragile country.
Haiti, a country of more than 11 million people, currently has only 10 elected officials after it failed to hold parliamentary elections, leading Moise to rule by decree for more than a year until his death. Interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph is currently leading Haiti with the help of the police and military, but he faces mounting challenges to his power.
A source close to the investigation was also cited by the Herald as saying that Solages and Vincent told investigators they were translators for the Colombian commando unit that had an arrest warrant for the Haitian president , but when they arrived, they found him dead.
Haitian police previously said a group of 26 Colombians and two Haitian Americans were suspected of carrying out the murder of Moise at his residence in Port-au-Prince in the early hours of last Wednesday.
Authorities declared on Friday that 18 Colombian and two American suspects had so far been detained. Three of the Colombian suspects have been killed and five others remain at large.
While Washington has so far snubbed Haiti's request for troops in the aftermath of the assassination, the US Defense Department announced on Sunday that it is dispatching a team of security and law enforcement experts to Haiti to determine what assistance it could offer in the case.
