Friends hint Haiti suspect duped
Floridian: Man said president's arrest, not killing, was plan
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The arrest of a failed Haitian businessman living in Florida who authorities say was a key player in the killing of Haiti’s president deepened the mystery Monday into an already convoluted plot surrounding the assassination.
Haitian authorities identified the suspect as Christian Emmanuel Sanon, 62, who once expressed in a YouTube video his desire to lead the country. However, he is unknown in Haitian political circles.
Associates suggested he was duped by those really behind the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in an attack last week that critically wounded his wife, Martine, who remains hospitalized in Miami.
A Florida friend of Sanon said he is an evangelical Christian pastor and a licensed physician in Haiti, but not in the U.S. The associate, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of safety concerns, said Sanon told him he was approached by people claiming to represent the U.S. State and Justice departments who wanted to install him as president.
He said the plan was for Moise to be arrested, not killed, and that Sanon would not have participated if he knew Moise would be assassinated.
“I guarantee you that,” the associate said. “This was supposed to be a mission to save Haiti from hell, with support from the U.S. government.”
Echoing those sentiments was the Rev. Larry Caldwell, a Florida pastor, who said he worked with Sanon setting up churches and medical clinics in Haiti in 2000-10.
“I know the character of the man,” Caldwell said. “You take a man like that and you’re then going to say he participated in a brutal crime of murder, knowing that being associated with that would send him to the pits of hell? … If there was one man who would be willing to stand in the breach to help his country, it would be Christian.”
Moise’s killers were protecting Sanon, whom he accused of working with those who plotted the assassination, said Leon Charles, Haiti’s national police chief.
Charles said officers found a hat with the logo of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, 20 boxes of bullets, gun parts, four license plates from the Dominican Republic, two cars and correspondence at Sanon’s house in Haiti.
Twenty-six former Colombian soldiers are suspected in the killing and 23 have been arrested, along with three Haitians. Charles said five suspects are still at large and at least three have been killed.
“They are dangerous individuals,” Charles said. “I’m talking commando, specialized commando.”
Meanwhile, Colombia’s national police chief, Gen. Jorge Luis Vargas, said a Florida-based enterprise, CTU Security, used its company credit card to buy 19 plane tickets from Bogota to Santo Domingo for the Colombian suspects. Most arrived in June and proceeded to Haiti within weeks, Vargas said.
He said Dimitri Herard, head of general security at Haiti’s National Palace, flew to Colombia, Ecuador and Panama in the months before the assassination. Colombian police are investigating whether he had any role in recruiting the mercenaries. Haitian prosecutors are seeking to interrogate, Vargas said.
Charles said Sanon was in contact with CTU Security and that the company recruited the suspects in the killing. He said Sanon flew to Haiti in June on a private jet, accompanied by several of the alleged gunmen.
The suspects’ initial mission was to protect Sanon, but they later received a new order: to arrest the president, Charles said.
“The operation started from there,” he said.
Charles said that after Moise was killed, one suspect phoned Sanon, who got in touch with two people believed to be masterminds of the plot. He did not identify them or say if police know who they are.
Sanon’s associate said he attended a recent meeting in Florida with Sanon and about a dozen other people, including Antonio Enmanuel Intriago Valera, a Venezuelan emigrant to Miami who runs CTU Security. He said a presentation was made for rebuilding the country, including its water system, converting trash into energy and fixing roads.
Sanon “is completely gullible,” the associate added. “He thinks God is going to save everything.”
TALKS WITH THE U.S.
Sanon’s arrest comes as a growing number of politicians have challenged interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph, who is currently in charge of Haiti with backing from police and the military.
U.S. officials, including representatives from the departments of Justice and Homeland Security, met Sunday with Joseph, designated Prime Minister Ariel Henry and Joseph Lambert, the head of Haiti’s dismantled Senate, whom supporters have named as provisional president in a challenge to Joseph, according to the White House National Security Council.
The delegation also met with Haiti’s National Police and reviewed the security of critical infrastructure, it said.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the delegation received a request for additional assistance. She said a potential deployment of U.S. troops remained “under review,” but also suggested that Haiti’s political uncertainty was a complicating factor.
“What was clear from their trip is that there is a lack of clarity about the future of political leadership,” Psaki said.
President Joe Biden said he was closely following developments, adding: “The people of Haiti deserve peace and security, and Haiti’s political leaders need to come together for the good of their country.”