Lawyers for wife of former Haitian president respond to indictment
LAWYERS REPRESENTING Martine Moïse are questioning the motive behind the decision of an investigative judge, who said he found sufficient evidence linking her and 49 other people to the July 2021 assassination of her husband, President Jovenel Moïse.
In a letter sent to Edler Guillaume, the Government Commissioner at the Court of First Instance of Port-au-Prince, attorney Emmanuel Jeanty of the law firm Expertus Firme D’Avocats, is casting doubt regarding the order of Judge Walther W. Voltaire.
“Furthermore, it is common knowledge that the mandate of the investigating judge had already expired before the dissemination on online platforms of this alleged order, devoid of any authentication, ”Jeanty said.
“This temporal inconsistency justifies reasonable doubts about the integrity of the judicial process and raises concerns about the validity of these events. It is therefore imperative that a sheaf of light be projected onto this paradoxical situation in an attempt to preserve the integrity of the judicial system and guarantee respect for the fundamental rights of all parties involved in this case,” he added.
Earlier this week, the investigative judge said there is enough evidence to charge 49 people, including Mrs Moise, with the assassination on July 7, 2021.
Voltaire is the fifth magistrate to have probed Moïse’s assassination and former prime minister Claude Joseph, who has also been indicted, is accusing the current head of government, Dr Ariel Henry, of “weaponising the Haitian justice system” by targeting him and the former first lady.
“Ariel Henry, the main beneficiary or the mastermind of the July 7th coup leading to the tragic killing of President Jovenel Moïse, is weaponising the Haitian justice system, prosecuting political opponents like me. It’s a classic coup d’état.
“They failed to kill me and Martine Moïse on July 7, 2021, now they are using the Haitian justice system to advance their Machiavellian agenda. The Haitian people, however, won’t be distracted. I will not give up my fight against a government that has been killing the Haitian people. Ariel Henry has to go because he has failed the Haitian people,” Joseph said in a statement.
On Monday, Judge Voltaire sent his 122-page order to a prosecutor who will now notify the defendants about the indictment.
The indictments came after two and a half years and five judges investigating the murder of Moïse. His wife was also injured during the incident and had to be flown to the United States for medical treatment. A number of former Colombian military officials have been arrested in connection with the murder and are awaiting trial in a Haitian jail.
The United States have also prosecuted several other people, including Haitian nationals and in his indictment report, the judge has decided not to pursue criminal charges against most of the 11 defendants named in a parallel US indictment in Miami, citing double jeopardy.
But he has named Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a politically ambitious Haitian-American pastor, who is accused of plotting a coup to rule Haiti that led to Moïse’s death. In the indictment, Sanon is described as the “intellectual author” of the assassination plot along with Joseph Félix Badio, a former government consultant.
In indicting the former first lady, the judge notes that she not only refused two invitations to appear before the judge’s chambers to answer questions about her husband’s killing, but her statements about “are so ensnared by contradictions that they ultimately discredited themselves.”