Haiti minister says ‘big fish’ behind president’s killing still at large

New prime minister announced as elections chief says current suspects were probably not ringleaders

The “big fishes” who masterminded the assassination of Haiti’s president, Jovenel Moïse, remain at large, a senior government minister has admitted, as the Caribbean country unveiled a new prime minister in a bid to defuse a burgeoning struggle for power.

Police have named two Haitian citizens as key suspects in the murder: a Florida-based pastor called Christian Emmanuel Sanon and the former intelligence officer Joseph Felix Badio. On Friday Colombia’s police chief, Gen Jorge Luis Vargas, claimed Badio might have given the order for two retired Colombian soldiers to assassinate Moïse in the early hours of 7 July for reasons that remain obscure. Sanon was arrested in Haiti last week, and Badio’s whereabouts are unknown.

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Guns, gangs and ‘bad aid’: Haiti’s crisis reaches full throttle

Incessant foreign meddling and corrupt elites have ensured life for Haitians remains mired in violence and poverty. President Moïse’s assassination marks an escalating catastrophe

The Haitian political activist Marie Antoinette Duclair appears to have been unaware that two men on a motorbike were following her car through the badly lit streets of Port-au-Prince.

Her passenger on the night of 29 June was a journalist, Diego Charles. They had been attending a meeting, and she was now, at 11 o’clock at night, dropping him at his home in the Christ-Roi area of Haiti’s capital.

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The assassination of Haiti’s leader remains shrouded in mystery: ‘We may never know’

Authorities are still struggling to understand the motives and masterminds behind the first killing of a Haitian president since 1915

Giovanna Romero remembers her husband, Mauricio, as a caring father who called home every night when he was out of the country on work. He did so as usual on the night of 6 July – from where, exactly, she isn’t sure – to remind her and their children he loved them and tell them to take care.

“I’ll call again soon,” the retired Colombian soldier promised – a pledge he would be unable to keep.

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Haiti president’s assassination: what we know so far

Only a few things are known for sure about the killing of Jovenel Moïse, with many unanswered questions

There are few things that can be said with absolute certainty about the assassination save for the fact that at some point during the night of Wednesday 7 July, the Haitian president, Jovenel Moïse, was shot and killed at his private residence in the hills above the capital, Port-au-Prince, during an attack in which his wife, Martine, was also severely injured. Although the official account of the attack places it at about 1am, even that timeline has been questioned.

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Haiti police say murder suspect is middleman living in Florida

Items found at Christian Emmanuel Sanon’s house include bullets, gun parts and US drug agency hat

Police in Haiti say the latest suspect arrested in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse is a Haitian living in Florida who acted as a middleman between the alleged hitmen and the plot’s unnamed masterminds.

The suspect was identified by police as Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a Haitian in his 60s living in Florida who describes himself as a doctor and has accused his homeland’s leaders of corruption.

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Haiti crisis deepens as alleged hitman’s sister vows to clear his name

Duberney Capador, killed after assassination of Jovenel Moïse, was hired by security firm to protect ‘important people’, says sister

The sister of one of the alleged Colombian hitmen accused of assassinating Haiti’s president has insisted he is innocent and vowed to clear her dead brother’s name, as a potentially destabilising power struggle gripped the Caribbean country.

Duberney Capador, a retired member of Colombia’s special forces, was one of two Colombians reportedly killed by Haitian security forces last week after the assassination of Jovenel Moïse in Port-au-Prince. More than a dozen citizens of the South American country have so far been arrested, as well as two Haitian Americans.

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Jovenel Moïse obituary

Haitian president whose five-year rule was mired in allegations of corruption and brutality

The five-year rule of the Haitian president Jovenel Moïse, who has died aged 53 after being assassinated at his home, was dominated by allegations of corruption and brutality. At the time of his death there was a dispute about the handover of power, and Moïse, who last year had dissolved the country’s parliament, was essentially running Haiti by decree, much as Napoleon had done more than 200 years before.

In 2016, Moïse inherited a country still trying to recover from the 2010 devastating earthquake as well as Hurricane Matthew, which had hit just a month before. However, under his presidency, Haitians endured worsening living standards, including rampant unemployment, in a nation where more than half the population live below the poverty line. Inflation spiralled upwards and food and fuel became scarcer.

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Widow of Haitian president releases first statement since assassination – audio

The hospitalised wife of Haiti's assassinated president, Jovenel Moïse, has given her first public statement since being wounded in the attack that killed him, accusing enemies of wanting 'to kill his dream, his vision, his ideology'. But fresh questions have been raised over Haiti’s official narrative for the assassination, as uncertainty gripped the Caribbean country and the streets of the capital remained eerily quiet amid fears Haiti is lurching into a new phase of political and social upheaval

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Haitian leader’s widow blames political enemies as power struggle intensifies

A voice recording on Martine Moïse’s Twitter page accuses enemies of trying to stop democratic change

The widow of the murdered Haitian president Jovenel Moïse has accused shadowy enemies of organising his assassination to stop democratic change, as a struggle for power intensified in the Caribbean nation.

Haiti has been reeling since Moïse was gunned down early on Wednesday at his home in the capital, Port-au-Prince. Martine Moïse, who was wounded in the attack, said her husband was targeted for political reasons.

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Doubts raised about who was behind the assassination of Haiti’s president

Police claims that Jovenel Moïse was killed by a mainly Colombian hit squad thrown into doubt

Questions have been raised over Haiti’s official narrative for the assassination of its president, Jovenel Moïse, who was gunned down at his mansion in Port-au-Prince last Wednesday.

Haitian police and the politicians who stepped into the political vacuum created by Moïse’s killing have claimed he was shot at about 1am by members of a predominantly Colombian hit squad who had stormed the president’s hillside residence. “Foreigners came to our country to kill the president,” police chief Léon Charles alleged after the shooting.

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Haiti requests US troops to protect infrastructure after assassination

• Elections minister calls for US help amid political instability

• Previous foreign interventions have proved controversial

Haiti’s government has requested that the United States send troops to protect key infrastructure following the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse this week, the elections minister, Mathias Pierre, said on Friday.

Related: Why were Colombian guns for hire allegedly key to Haiti assassination plot?

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Why were Colombian guns for hire allegedly key to Haiti assassination plot?

The hit squad that killed President Jovenel Moïse is alleged to be largely drawn from veterans of Colombia’s civil conflicts

When Manuel Antonio Grosso Guarín jetted into Punta Cana’s tourist-clogged airport early last month on Avianca Flight 252, immigration officials are unlikely to have given the 41-year-old Colombian a second glance. Visitors from around the globe flock to this Dominican resort town each week in search of sun, sea and Caribbean sands.

Grosso appears to have had rather different plans, though: to sneak over the border into neighbouring Haiti and help assassinate that country’s president.

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Haiti: crowds protest after arrest of Jovenel Moïse assassination suspects – video

Crowds gathered outside police headquarters, demanding information, after the arrest of 17 men believed to be involved in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse on Wednesday. 

Police say they believe a heavily armed commando unit composed of 26 Colombians and two Haitian Americans assassinated Moïse, as the search for the rest of the group continues

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Florida entrepreneur accused by Haiti of taking part in Jovenel Moïse killing

James Solages is one of two Haitian Americans the government said it arrested in connection with the killing at the presidential residence

The Haitian government has accused a Florida entrepreneur and former security guard of being involved in the assassination of Jovenel Moïse.

James Solages is one of two Haitian Americans the government said it arrested in Port-au-Prince in connection with Wednesday’s killing at the presidential residence. The other was named as Joseph Vincent, but there is little known about him.

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Haiti president assassination: 26 Colombians, two US-Haitians took part in Jovenel Moïse killing, police say

Seventeen captured men paraded in front of journalists, as police chief says another three were killed and eight remain on the run

A heavily armed commando unit that assassinated Haiti’s president, Jovenel Moïse, was composed of 26 Colombians and two Haitian Americans, authorities have said, as the hunt goes on for the masterminds of the killing.

Moïse, 53, was fatally shot early on Wednesday at his home by what officials said was a group of foreign, trained killers, pitching the poorest country in the Americas deeper into turmoil amid political divisions, hunger and widespread gang violence.

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Haiti: police kill suspects in gun battle after assassination of president – video report

An already struggling and chaotic Haiti is reeling from the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, followed by a reported gun battle in which authorities said police killed four of the murder suspects. Officials have pledged to find all those responsible for the raid on Moïse’s house before dawn on Wednesday. The government has declared a two-week state of emergency to help it hunt the assassins.

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Haiti reels from murder of president as police hunt assassins

Two-week state of emergency declared as officers reportedly kill four suspects in gun battle after Jovenel Moïse’s death

A struggling and chaotic Haiti is reeling from the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse followed by a reported gun battle in which authorities said police killed four of the murder suspects, detained two others and freed three officers who were being held hostage.

With Port-au-Prince’s airport still closed and residents asked to remain at home, rumours and speculation continued to swirl around the murky circumstances of Moïse’s murder.

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‘It’s all up in the air’: wary Haitians stay home as power struggle looms

Details of assassination of President Jovenel Moïse emerge as political uncertainty grips nation

Disturbing details of the murder of Haiti’s president, Jovenel Moïse, are emerging as the Caribbean country grapples with the fallout from what was officially the first assassination of a serving president in the Americas since the shooting of John F Kennedy in 1963.

Moïse, who had been facing mounting public anger over what critics called his reluctance to relinquish power, was shot dead in the early hours of Wednesday at his home in a wealthy suburb of the capital, Port-au-Prince. The first lady, Martine Moïse, was wounded and evacuated to Miami where she is reportedly in a stable condition.

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Haiti police kill four in fight with suspected killers of president Jovenel Moïse

Police say another two attackers have been detained and that assailants will be ‘killed or captured’

Haiti’s security forces have killed four members of a group of “mercenaries” who assassinated President Jovenel Moïse in his home, police chief Leon Charles has said.

“The police is still in combat with the assailants,” Charles said in a televised briefing late on Wednesday, saying that two of the attackers had been detained. Of the rest he said: “They will be killed or captured”.

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‘No one’s in charge’: Haiti faces violent new era after killing of president

Assassination of President Jovenel Moïse leaves impoverished Caribbean nation on brink of chaos

The assassination of Haiti’s president early on Wednesday marks the explosive climax of a spiralling political and security crisis – and threatens to open a violent new chapter in the Caribbean nation’s volatile history.

Jovenel Moïse was gunned down at his home in the capital, Port-au-Prince, with witnesses and government officials suggesting the attack was perpetrated by black-clad “mercenaries” posing as DEA agents. His wife, the first lady, Martine Moïse, was also reported to have been wounded in the attack.

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