(15 Jun 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Port-au-Prince, Haiti – 2 June 2025
1. Judges entering courthouse
2. Colombian suspects accused of involvement in the assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moïse entering courtroom
3. Judges receiving papers
4. Various of suspects in courthouse for case hearing
5. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Jheyner Alberto Carmona Flores, Detained Colombian national: ++ PARTIALLY OVERLAID++
“Detainees have the right to be treated with dignity. Not to be subjected to cruel treatment or torture.”
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ARCHIVE: Port-au-Prince, Haiti – 29 February 2024
5. Various of people running away with sounds of shots in background
6. Wide of body lying on street in the distance as people walk out of the neighborhood with their hands up
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ARCHIVE: Port-au-Prince, Haiti – 17 October 2019
7. Haitian President Jovenel Moïse walking with his wife Martine Marie Étienne Moïse and other officials
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ARCHIVE: Port-au-Prince, Haiti – 7 July 2021
8. Various of Moise’s house with bullet holes on wall
9. Armed soldiers in Moïse’s house
10. Armed soldiers on the roof
11. Police arresting Colombian nationals suspected of involvement in Moïse’s assassination
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ARCHIVE: Port-au-Prince, Haiti – 8 July 2021
12. Detained Colombian suspects
STORYLINE:
Not one suspect imprisoned in Haiti has faced trial after being accused in the killing of President Jovenel Moïse, who was gunned down at his home nearly four years ago.
Gang violence, death threats, and a crumbling judicial system have stalled an ongoing investigation defined by outbursts and tense exchanges between suspects and judges.
Six Haitian judges have been assigned to investigate whether there is sufficient evidence to warrant a trial for the twenty suspects still detained in the troubled Caribbean country.
Among them are 17 former soldiers from Colombia and three Haitian officials: a former mayor, a former policeman, and Joseph Badio, who once worked for Haiti’s Ministry of Justice and at the government’s anti-corruption unit until he was fired for alleged ethics violations.
Three other suspects, all Colombians, were killed hours after Moïse was slain.
The initial investigation into the case was repeatedly halted as some Haitian judges resigned because they feared for their lives. Now, judges are tasked with starting the investigation anew.
But determining who might be complicit in the president’s death is only one of numerous challenges they face.
The tension in the hearing has carried over into the interrogations of the Colombian suspects, who denied participating in the killing and maintain they were hired by a Miami-based security firm and told they’d be going to Haiti to provide security for a power plant, a water treatment plant, and diplomatic officials, as well as train Haitian police and soldiers.
The Colombians have also repeatedly denounced their poor treatment in the Haitian prison.
“I have been subjected to degrading treatment. I have been subjected to physical and psychological torture,” said Jheyner Alberto Carmona Flores during a recent hearing.
Last year, powerful gangs seized control of the courthouse in downtown Port-au-Prince, where the judges were interrogating suspects in the Moïse case. The hearings were suspended until the government found a private home to rent in a community in southeast Port-au-Prince, which was once considered.
But gangs that control 85% of Haiti’s capital recently attacked that area, forcing the government to suspend the hearings and move again.
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