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A Florida-based doctor of Haitian descent was arrested as a “central” suspect in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse and the national police chief told a press conference on Sunday that he believed the suspect was plotting to become president.
The doctor, Christian Emmanuel Sanon, 63, is now the third suspect of Haitian origin with links to the United States to be arrested. Other suspects include 18 Colombians, most of them former soldiers.
The head of the Haitian national police, Léon Charles, described Mr. Sanon as a key figure behind the assassination of the president.
“He arrived by private plane in June with political objectives and contacted a private security company to recruit the people who committed this act,” said the police chief. The company, he said, was a US-based Venezuelan security company called CTU.
“The initial mission that was given to these attackers was to protect the individual named Emmanuel Sanon but subsequently the mission changed,” said Mr. Charles, hinting that Mr. Sanon had intended to install as chair.
As evidence, Mr. Charles said Mr. Sanon was the person one of the Colombians contacted after his arrest. During a search of his home, authorities said, police found a DEA cap, a box of cartridges, two vehicles, six pistol holsters, around 20 boxes of bullets, 24 unused shooting targets and four Dominican Republic license plates.
On the night of the president’s assassination, people who appeared to be arriving to assassinate the president shouted that they were part of a US Drug Enforcement Agency operation, according to videos filmed from nearby buildings and synchronized by New York City. Times.
The DEA said it was not involved.
The next task of the investigation, Mr Charles said, is to determine who funded the operation.
Two Americans arrested last week said they were not in the room when the president was killed and had only worked as translators for the contract killers, according to a Haitian judge who interviewed them. They met with other participants at an upscale hotel on the outskirts of Pétionville in Port-au-Prince to plan the attack.
The aim was not to kill the president, the two Americans explained to the judge, but to bring him to the national palace. On Sunday, Mr Charles said one of the attackers had received an arrest warrant against the president.
One of the Americans has been identified as James J. Solages, 35, who lived in South Florida and previously worked as a security guard at the Canadian Embassy in Haiti. The other has been identified as Joseph Vincent, 55.
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