Haiti’s President Jovenel Moise said that his security officers had thwarted an attempted coup, arresting more than 20 people in the process. The alleged plotters had aimed to kill Moise, the leader claimed in a press conference in the capital Port-au-Prince on Sunday. “I thank my head of security at the palace. The goal of these people was to make an attempt on my life,” Moise said. Americans among armed foreigners charged in Haiti ‘conspiracy’ “That plan was aborted,” he added, speaking on the tarmac at Port-au-Prince airport, accompanied by his wife and Prime Minister Joseph Jouthe. Moise did not give further details or evidence of the plot. The plot was an “attempted coup d’etat”, according to Justice Minister Rockefeller Vincent, with authorities saying at least 23 people have been arrested, including a top judge and an official from the national police. Leon Charles, the director of Haiti’s national police force, said officers had seized documents, cash and several weapons, including assault rifles, an Uzi submachine gun, pistols and machetes. Jouthe added that among the documents was a speech from the judge who had planned on becoming interim leader in a transition government. But political opposition figures dismissed claims that a coup had been attempted. “You don’t carry out a coup with two pistols and three or four rifles,” lawyer Andre Michel said. He added that Moise could not claim to have suffered a coup attempt because his presidential term had expired. The purported coup attempt comes as Moise’s supporters and opponents are embroiled in a bitter dispute over when his term began and therefore when it will end. In Haiti, presidential terms last for five years and always begin on February 7, after elections. The presidential election in October 2015, in which Moise was elected in the first round, was annulled because of fraud. Warlike scenes in Haiti as police and troops shoot at each other over pay A year later, he was declared the winner in the second round of the repeat election and was finally sworn in on February 7, 2017. Moise and his supporters say his term began in 2017 - and will continue for another year. According to his opponents, Moise’s term began in February 2016 and therefore ended on Sunday. For more than two years, Haiti has repeatedly been brought to a standstill by sometimes violent protests demanding Moise’s resignation. His detractors accuse him of corruption. The US on Friday accepted the president’s claim to power, with State Department spokesman Ned Price saying Washington has urged “free and fair legislative elections so that parliament may resume its rightful role”. In a letter Friday to the United Nations mission in Haiti, several human rights and women’s advocacy groups faulted it for providing technical and logistical support for Moise’s plans to hold a constitutional reform referendum in April followed by presidential and legislative elections. “The United Nations must under no circumstances support President Jovenel Moise in his anti-democratic plans,” the letter stated. Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince on Sunday saw sparse demonstrations and sporadic clashes with police. DPA and Agence France-Presse
