Haiti president Jovenel Moise assassination: widow, ex-PM charged over killing of former leader in 2021
- President Jovenel Moise as slain by gunmen at his private residence in the Haitian capital on July 7, 2021
- His widow Martine Moise and former prime minister Claude Joseph are among dozens charged
A Haitian judge in charge of the investigation into the 2021 assassination of the Caribbean nation’s last president has charged some 50 people, including his widow and a former prime minister, according to a document leaked to local media.
According to the 122-page document from Judge Walther Wesser Voltaire, made public by AyiboPost, the president’s widow Martine Moise conspired with former prime minister Claude Joseph to kill the president in order to replace him herself.
President Jovenel Moise was shot dead when armed men broke into his Port-au-Prince bedroom on the night of July 7, 2021, a raid that left the former first lady injured.
The judge’s order calls for the arrest and trial of those charged.
The former first lady did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment, nor did Joseph. Moise has criticised on social media what she calls unjust arrests and political persecutions.
Joseph meanwhile told the Miami Herald the president’s de facto successor, Prime Minister Ariel Henry, was the main beneficiary and was now “weaponising the Haitian justice system” to persecute opponents in “a classic coup d’etat”.