Haiti rejects reports of inside job
Colombian-based TV station alleges officials helped in assassination
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Authorities in Haiti on Thursday pushed back against reports that government officials were involved in the killing of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, calling them “a lie.”
Léon Charles, head of Haiti’s National Police, denied a report from Caracol news, a Colombian-based private TV station, that alleged interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph was the mastermind of the July 7 killing.
“The police warns of all propaganda creating a diversion,” he said, adding that the government has no evidence to support the allegations.
Haitian authorities have not been forthcoming with information about who might have been behind the killing, suggesting that media reports implicating current officials had struck a nerve in the government.
In Colombia, Gen. Jorge Luis Vargas, the head of that country’s national police force, told reporters that he had no information suggesting Joseph had any role in the plot.
Charles also said the head of Moïse’s security detail, Dimitri Hérard, had been removed from his post and placed in isolated detention after officials interrogated him. Police had announced his detention in recent days. Charles said authorities will meet with him a third time before deciding the next steps.
Hérard has not officially been named as a suspect in the investigation, but many Haitians have questioned how attackers could have invaded the president’s house and killed him with no injuries among those assigned to protect him.
The news conference was held a day after the Colombian TV station aired a report it said was based on information from FBI sources and Haitian authorities and telephone calls, pictures and testimony from those accused of participating in the plot. “I’m issuing a formal denial to these allegations,” Charles said, calling them “a lie.”
Joseph, the interim prime minister, was about to be replaced when the assassination occurred. Moïse had named him to the post in April.
Two days before the assassination, Moïse announced that he had chosen a new prime minister, neurosurgeon Ariel Henry. But the new prime minister had not yet been sworn into office as of July 7.