Haiti: The prosecutor of the assassination of Jovenel Moise indicts the Prime Minister | He asked for the imputation of Ariel Henry banned him from leaving the country

Prosecutor Bel-Ford Claude requested that the Prime Minister of Haiti, Ariel Henry, be investigated as an accused in the case of the assassination of President Jovenel Moise. Hours after Claude also banned Henry from leaving the country, the prime minister announced his dismissal. The prosecutor’s request was based on a phone conversation that Henry allegedly had with one of Moise’s prime suspects in the crime.

Saturday Henry had denounced the “diversionary maneuvers” of the prosecutor and this Tuesday he insisted on his criticisms by assuring that “nothing and nobody, not even threats of all kinds” will destroy his “unshakeable will”. Moise was assassinated on July 7 by an armed commando at his home in Port-au-Prince.. The assassination is in the hands of Judge Gary Orélien, the only authority competent to call witnesses or defendants to testify, or to decide who is suspected of the crime.

“The murder hypotheses”

The brief presented by the prosecutor Bel-Ford Claude before a court of first instance in Port-au-Prince, he was brief but concise: “There is enough compromising material to form my conviction as to whether or not to impute Mr. Henry and to seek his indictment out of hand.”

In a second note, addressed to the director of the Haitian Department of Immigration and Emigration, Joseph Cianculli, the prosecutor justified the measure prohibiting Henry’s exit by recalling the “Serious accusations of the assassination of the President of the Republic”.

The decree prohibiting “leaving the national territory by air, sea and land” signed by Claude leaked this Tuesday on social networks. The differences between senior officials have increased in recent weeks: the Haitian media ensure that in addition to asking him to resign for Claude himself, he had done the same with the head of the Ministry of Justice, Rockefeller Vincent, and the secretary of the Council of Ministers, Rénald Lubérice.

Two calls on the day of the assassination

Prosecutor Claude understands that the Prime Minister Henri, just a few hours after the murder of Moise, had telephone conversations with one of the people most solicited by the survey. It is Joseph Felix Badio, a former head of the anti-corruption unit, an agency of the Ministry of Justice, who It would have been geolocated in the district where the private residence of President Moise is located because of the calls made to Henry at 04:03 then at 04:20 the morning of the attack.

Badio is believed to be the one who coordinated the operation from the field and served as a liaison with the command of Colombian mercenaries who attacked the president’s residence. As a judge was already in charge of the investigation, the prosecutor Claude does not have the power to call anyone to testify, but he justified his request by evoking the “extreme gravity” of this file “for the nation”. Legally a prime minister can only be heard by a judge if the president of the republic authorizes it But, after Moise’s death, Haiti finds itself without a president.

Last week Claude himself sent Henry an “invitation” to appear on Tuesday for questioning over phone calls, a summons that was publicly disqualified by the prime minister. In his letter, Claude explained to the head of government that his presentation to the prosecution was voluntary “taking into account the restrictions due to his status as a senior official”.

The Haitian Citizen Protection Office said it was “outraged and stunned” by the disclosure of telephone contacts. “Ariel Henry must resign immediately and make himself available in court”Renan Hedouville, head of the public establishment, said Saturday.

“Serious administrative fault”

Far from responding to the harsh accusations, Henry communicated Claude’s dismissal in a letter dated Monday but made public on Tuesday by the government, in which the dismissal is justified by an alleged “serious administrative offense” committed by the prosecutor. “I am happy to inform you that it has been decided to revoke him,” the Prime Minister said in the brief note issued.

His replacement at the Port-au-Prince prosecutor’s office will be Frantz Louis Juste, who has already been warned. According to Henry’s associates at the newspaper Haiti Gazette, Claude’s request would be canceled because the prosecutor had already been dismissed when requesting the imputation of the prime minister.

This Tuesday, from his Twitter account, Henry came out to defend himself from the alleged phone calls and said: “Nothing and no one, not even threats of all kinds, they will distract us from our unwavering and infallible will of this collective reconstruction, for the happiness of all the girls and all the children of our nation. ” A month later devastating earthquake that killed at least 2,248 people and affected 690,000 in Haiti, the Prime Minister He assured that “the time has come for recovery and reconstruction”.

“The distraction maneuvers to create confusion and prevent justice from doing its job calmly will not pass. The real culprits, the brains and sponsors of the heinous assassination of President Jovenel Moise will be found, brought to justice and punished for their crimeHenry himself had said Saturday when signing a political agreement with the opposition.

Henry continues to meet with political parties in the “peaceful and effective governance” agreement which has already been signed, according to him, by 169 parties and civil society organizations. The new unity government, who must take up his duties within a maximum of five days, will retain power until elections are held “no later than the end of 2022, under the new Constitution”, as it appears in the text of the agreement.

Henry, a neurosurgeon by profession, was appointed Prime Minister by Moise a few days before his death in place of Claude Joseph. The Haitian president was assassinated on July 7 by a group of Colombian mercenaries hired by a Miami security company.. Haitian authorities reported that 44 people were arrested, including 18 former Colombian military personnel and 12 police officers from the president’s security organ who failed to respond to the fierce attack.