Haitian Judge Walther Wesser Voltaire on Monday issued 122 pages of indictments against dozens of people allegedly involved in the assassination of President Jovenel Moise.
One of the indictments was against Moise’s widow Martine, who the judge accused of conspiring with former Prime Minister Claude Joseph to kill her husband and take his place as president.
Jovenel Moise was murdered in his home on July 7, 2021, by a squad of gunmen, four of whom were killed in a subsequent gun battle with police. Martine Moise was home at the time and was shot in the arm and thigh during the attack.
“I still don’t believe that my husband has gone like this before my eyes without saying a last word to me. This pain will never pass,” she said from her hospital bed in Miami a few days after the assassination.
“You have to be a notorious criminal without guts to assassinate a president like Jovenel Moïse with impunity without giving him the chance to speak. You knew who the president was fighting against,” she said to the killers in an audio statement released from the hospital.
Dozens of arrests were made in connection with the assassination of President Moise. Haitian officials said the killing was an elaborate plot hatched by the conspirators during meetings in Florida and the Dominican Republic.
In February 2023, U.S. federal agents arrested four suspects in South Florida accused of playing major roles in the Moise murder plot, including the owner of a security firm in the Miami area.
“While the murder of President Moïse occurred in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, most of the planning, funding and direction of the plot to violently overthrow the president occurred right here in the United States in the Southern District of Florida, beginning in early 2021,” U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe said when the arrests were announced.
Haitian American dual citizen Joseph Vincent, 58, was sentenced to life in prison in Miami in early February for advising the conspirators, arranging contacts for them with local community leaders, and encouraging protests against Moise’s government as cover for the plot to overthrow him.
According to court documents in the Vincent case, the original plan was to abduct Moise, but the objective was later changed to assassination. Vincent was the fourth defendant to be sentenced to life in prison for the plot, the other three being a former Haitian senator, a Haitian businessman with dual Chilean citizenship, and a retired Colombian army officer.
Lapointe said “money and power” were the likely motivations behind Moise’s killing. The results included poverty and chaos, as Haiti descended into a nightmare of gang violence that continues to this day.
The Haitian end of the investigation has been as tumultuous as anything else on the anarchic island since Moise’s death. Walther Wesser Voltaire is the fifth judge to oversee the investigation since 2021. Several of his predecessors resigned because of threats against their lives and families.
Voltaire’s decision to indict Martine Moise, former Prime Minister Claude Joseph, former National Police chief Leon Charles, and dozens of others is “expected to further destabilize Haiti,” as the Associated Press (AP) put it.
In addition to the shocking level of violence and pillage from gangs, who control most of the capital of Port-au-Prince, Haiti has experienced a series of mass protests against the rule of current Prime Minister Ariel Henry, some of them violent and destructive.
Many Haitians believe Henry is an illegitimate leader who will do anything to remain in power. One reason the United Nations and its member states are so reluctant to send peacekeeping forces into Haiti is that much of the population would view them as foreign muscle working to keep Henry in power.
Former police chief Leon Charles, who faced the most serious indictments for murder, weapons possession, and conspiring against the Haitian state, is currently Haiti’s permanent representative to the Organization of American States.
Former Prime Minister Claude Joseph, the only high-profile indictee to grant the AP an interview, accused Henry of “undermining” the Moise investigation, “weaponizing” Haiti’s justice system, and “prosecuting political opponents like me.”
“It’s a classic coup d’etat,” Joseph alleged. “They failed to kill me and Martine Moïse on July 7th 2021, now they are using the Haitian justice system to advance their Machiavellian agenda.”
Joseph called on Henry to resign and said he would not stop his “fight” to see that “justice” is served.
Voltaire’s accusation that Martine Moise planned to assume power herself after conspiring to murder her husband was a new wrinkle in the investigation. Several defendants in the case who entered guilty pleas in U.S. court claimed the plan was to replace Moise with a 65-year-old Haitian-American physician and pastor named Christian Emmanuel Sanon.
Indictments were filed against Sanon in U.S. federal court last week charging him with planning to kidnap or kill Jovenel Moise and take his place as leader of Haiti.
Sanon had already been charged with conspiring to smuggle bulletproof vests to Haiti for use by the Colombian hit squad, but U.S. prosecutors previously believed a different candidate had been selected by the conspiracy to replace Moise, a female Haitian Supreme Court justice named Windelle Coq Thelot.
The FBI said it had uncovered substantial new evidence that Sanon was one of the primary “authors” of the plot against Mosie and planned to take power after his death. However, Voltaire’s indictment cited testimony from a former Haitian Justice Ministry official named Joseph Badio who said Martine Moise and Claude Joseph planned to “monopolize power” after killing Jovenel Moise.
Voltaire quoted testimony from former National Palace Secretary-General Lyonel Valbrun that two days before the assassination, Martine spent five hours at the National Palace retrieving “a bunch of things,” and two days after the killing, she pressured Valbrun to open the presidential office so she could prepare to succeed her slain husband.
“Jovenel didn’t do anything for us. You have to open the office. The president told Ti Klod to create a council of ministers; he will hold elections in three months so I can become president, now we will have power,” Valbrun said Martine told him. “Ti Klod” is a nickname for Claude Joseph.
Voltaire’s indictment also challenged Martine Moise’s statement that she survived by hiding under the bed during the assassination because investigators determined she would not fit in the narrow space under the bed. Voltaire picturesquely asserted that not even a “giant rat” could fit under the bed.
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