Tag: assassinations

Friend of ‘mastermind’ behind assassination of Haiti president says America BACKED the killing – as it’s revealed DEA informant and FBI informants are among suspected hitmen

One of the Americans arrested over the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was a DEA informant who handed over the warlord responsible for leading the last coup in the Caribbean nation, it has been revealed.    

The DEA has admitted one of their ‘confidential sources’ was involved in the assassination, denied it orchestrated the plot and disclosed that he called them after the killing and they advised him to hand himself in.

Joseph Vincent, 55, has been named by sources to the Miami Herald as the DEA informant. 

Vincent helped the DEA in 2017 to arrest Guy Philippe, who led a 2004 coup against then-President Jean Bertrand Aristide, on drugs trafficking charges, the sources said. Vincent was with Haitian Police when Philippe was handed over to the DEA at an airport. Philippe is now serving nine years in a US federal prison.   

Vincent was one of three US citizens arrested last week on suspicion of being behind Wednesday’s early morning deadly raid on the president’s home. The two others are James Solages, 35, a maintenance worker, and Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a 63-year-old doctor and pastor, who is accused of being the mastermind. 23 Colombians are also under arrest. 

A number of the arrested suspects are FBI informants, CNN reported. 

Footage from the early Wednesday assassination shows an attacker with an American accent shouting in English ‘this is a DEA operation’ as the hit squad arrived at the president’s mansion. 

Haitian police also said they uncovered a hat with DEA emblazoned across it in the home of Sanon – along with a stash of weapons.  

An associate of Sanon has suggested Washington backed the president’s assassination, saying their friend had claimed the mission was supposed to ‘save Haiti from hell, with support from the US government’.  

Both US and Haitian authorities insisted in the hours after the assassination that the DEA was not involved. 

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Suspected Mastermind Of Haiti Presidential Assassination Arrested

The plot thickens by the day as a Haitian-born doctor who lived in Florida for more than two decades was arrested Sunday with suspicions of being the ring leader in the assassination of Haiti’s President Jovenel Moïse last Wednesday, Haiti’s police chief said Sunday, according to Miami Herald. 

On Sunday, National police chief Leon Charles announced Christian Emmanuel Sanon,63, was arrested for allegedly recruiting the mercenaries as their mission would be to protect him. 

Sanon landed in Haiti on a private jet in early June with “political objectives,” Charles said. The team Sanon hired was recruited through South Florida firm CTU Security.

“He arrived by private plane in June with political objectives and contacted a private security firm to recruit the people who committed this act,” the police chief told reporters, noting that the firm was a U.S.-based security company. 

But the team’s mission quickly changed when they were given new orders to arrest Moïse. 

“The initial mission that was given to these assailants was to protect the individual named Emmanuel Sanon, but afterward, the mission changed,” the police chief added.

Many questions remain unanswered about the mysterious plot that led to the president’s assassination last week at his private residence in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital.

Sanon is now the third Haitian-born suspect with ties to the U.S. Readers may recall last week, within 24 hours of the president’s slaying, James Solages, 35, and Joseph G. Vincent, 55, Haitian Americans from South Florida, were arrested. Also, eighteen Colombians were arrested, five remain at large, and three killed. 

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Former Canadian Embassy Worker Arrested In Haiti Assassination Worked For Sean Penn Relief Org

The assassination of Hatian president Jovenel Moïse has taken yet another strange twist, after ABC News reports that a Florida man arrested in connection with the hit formerly worked in Canada’s Embassy in Haiti, and also worked for a Hatian Relief Organization founded by suspected spooky actor Sean Penn following a 7.0 earthquake in 2010 that killed over 300,000 people.

James Solages, a 35-year-old Haitian-born resident of Miami, is one of 28 suspects accused by the Haitian government of participating in the deadly July 7 ambush attack that killed Moïse.

Solages, along with 55-year-old Joseph Vincent (also of Miami), claim they thought they were acting as interpreters ‘for an authorized operation to arrest the Haitian president’ by a group of Columbians, who told them Moïse was going to be arrested, not killed, according to the Washington Post.

According to NBC News, Solages worked as a bodyguard at Canada’s Embassy in Port-au-Prince, however relatives say he has no formal military training. Canada, of course, is adding as much distance as possible (via the Florida Sun-Sentinel):

Solages is also the president of a nonprofit organization with an office in North Lauderdale. FWA SA A JACMEL AVAN, which is Creole for “This Time Jacmel First,” has a mission of “rebuilding Haiti,” according to its website. The website as well as its Facebook page — both which were working Thursday — were no longer accessible Friday.

The website on Thursday said Solages claimed to be the chief commander of bodyguards for the Canadian Embassy in Haiti. However multiple news outlets are reporting that Canada’s foreign relation department said one of the men detained in the assassination (it did not name Solages) had been employed only briefly as a reserve bodyguard at its embassy by a private contractor.

Meanwhile, Solages worked as a driver and in a security capacity for Sean Penn’s J/P Haitian Relief Organization according to two sources.

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Former bodyguard at Canadian Embassy linked to Haitian president’s assassination

Two men believed to be Haitian Americans — one of them purportedly a former bodyguard at the Canadian Embassy in Port au Prince — have been arrested in connection with the assassination of Haiti’s president, Haitian officials said Thursday.

James Solages and Joseph Vincent were among 17 suspects detained in the brazen killing of President Jovenel Moïse by gunmen at his home in the pre-dawn hours Wednesday. Fifteen of them are from Colombia, according to Léon Charles, chief of Haiti’s National Police. He added that three other suspects were killed by police and eight others are on the run. Charles had earlier said seven were killed.

“We are going to bring them to justice,” he said as the 17 suspects sat handcuffed on the floor during a press conference Thursday night.

The oldest suspect is 55 and the youngest, Solages, is 35, according to a document shared by Mathias Pierre, Haiti’s minister of elections.

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Two Americans, Ex-Colombian Soldiers Named as Suspects in Assassination of Haitian President

Two men who are believed to hold American citizenship have been arrested in connection to the assassination of Haiti’s president Jovenel Moïse.

In detail: Léon Charles, chief of Haiti’s National Police, said Thursday that out of the 17 people authorities arrested, 15 are from Colombia. The remaining two have dual U.S.-Haitian citizenship.

Colombia’s Colombia’s Defense Ministry confirmed that six of the suspects that have Colombian citizenship are former members of its army. Gen. Jorge Luis Vargas Valencia, the head of the national police in the country, said Colombia’s President Iván Duque ordered the army and police to help Haiti authorities with the probe, the Associated Press reports.

“A team was formed with the best investigators … they are going to send dates, flight times, financial information that is already being collected to be sent to Port-au-Prince,” Vargas said.

Charles said authorities believe that 28 people were involved in the assassination, including 26 Colombians.

Haiti’s minister of elections Mathias Pierre previously said that four suspects were killed in a gunfight. Earlier authorities had said that seven purported assailants were killed.

Charles said Haitian police are looking for at least eight more people.

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Haitian President Jovenel Moïse Was Assassinated At Home, According To The Acting PM

Jovenel Moïse, Haiti’s embattled president who thrust the country into deeper political turmoil during his tumultuous one term in office, was assassinated overnight at his private residence, according to the country’s acting prime minister.

Prime Minister Claude Joseph said a group of people attacked the president’s private residence and killed him, calling it an “odious, barbaric” act.

“Every measure is being taken to guarantee the continuity of the state to protect the nation,” Joseph said in the statement.

The first lady was wounded by a bullet and is receiving care, he added.

Moïse came to power in 2017 after a lengthy election process that was marred by delays and accusations of fraud.

Although he had never held political office before, Moïse was tapped for the post by the country’s previous president Michel Martelly, who stepped down in 2016 without a successor in place.

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In secret recording, Florida Republican threatens to send Russian-Ukrainian ‘hit squad’ after rival

A little-known GOP candidate in one of Florida’s most competitive congressional seats was secretly recorded threatening to send “a Russian and Ukrainian hit squad” to a fellow Republican opponent to make her “disappear.”

During a 30-minute call with a conservative activist that was recorded before he became a candidate, William Braddock repeatedly warned the activist to not support GOP candidate Anna Paulina Luna in the Republican primary for a Tampa Bay-area congressional seatbecause he had access to assassins. The seat is being vacated by Rep. Charlie Crist (D-Fla.), who is running for governor.

“I really don’t want to have to end anybody’s life for the good of the people of the United States of America,” Braddock said at one point in the conversation last week, according to the recording exclusively obtained by POLITICO. “That will break my heart. But if it needs to be done, it needs to be done. Luna is a f—ing speed bump in the road. She’s a dead squirrel you run over every day when you leave the neighborhood.”

Reached by text message, Braddock refused to say whether he made any threats about Luna to the personwho recorded him, Erin Olszewski.

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