Tag: haiti

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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Hillary Violated State Department Policy to Get Convicted Child Trafficker Out of Haiti. Activist Found Dead.

In a well-known criminal case in which an American woman from Idaho attempted to smuggle 33 Haitian children across the Haitian border into the Dominican Republic soon after the 2010 earthquake, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took extraordinary measures, including the deployment of former president Bill Clinton as a negotiator, to get the woman released and sent back to the states to freedom. Also released were 9 co-participants in the enterprise, who denied any in-depth knowledge of the plan.

In 2013 an NBC News report claimed that the Clinton State Department had squashed an internal investigation into allegations of pedophilia and prostitution involving State Department personnel.

The Dominican Republic is recognized by the US State Department as a hotspot for the child sex tourism industry. Last year Clinton allies, including Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign manager, John Podesta, got caught up in a furor known as Pizzagate, which claimed that actionable evidence for launching an investigation had been uncovered by lewd pedophiliac images by a Wikileaks release of emails belonging to Podesta, who has acknowledged they are his. Podesta charged “they stole my emails” after a G-20 conference last year. While focused on assigning blame to “the Russians,” Podesta inadvertently acknowledged the emails’ authenticity. Wikileaks boasts a record of never having published an inauthentic document.

It is highly unusual for a secretary of state to get personally involved in a case of arrested Americans abroad. Department policy is to not interfere with a host nation’s legal proceedings. In 2010, that same year, there were more than 3,500 U.S. citizen arrests overseas, according to the Bureau of Consular Affairs.

Laura Sislby, now age 46, was convicted in a Haitian court in 2010 of lesser charges than human trafficking, although the Haitian public was demanding such charges. Described by CBS News as an “Idaho businesswoman,” Silsby took the Haitian children from their homes with promises to their parents of a “better life” for them in a school in the Dominican Republic, although she had stated to members of an Idaho church, and the Haitian authorities, that the children were orphans. Silsby had falsely stated at one point that she had found the children in front of a collapsed orphanage.

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