James Solages and Vincent Joseph, two Haitian-Americans with ties to Florida, were brought before journalists in handcuffs at a press conference late Thursday.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Last night, after this piece went to press, a team of attackers broke into President Jovenel Moise’s private residence above Port-au-Prince and in a hail of machine gun fire assassinated the president and injured his wife. Prime Minister Claude Joseph has declared a state of siege. The streets of the capital are empty and silent this morning, as the people of Haiti wait to see what will emerge after the killing.
In his intervention, Pradel Henriquez, the Minister of Communication declared “[…] we recall that there is a state of siege which was set up this morning […] it is a measure that the Government took on a situation of great danger […] today we have men with large weapons who have landed on a territory which is not theirs, they are not Haitian, it is true that there were Haitians with them […] it is foreigners who speak English and Spanish who entered the house of an elected President, and he had done nothing to deserve this fate […]” Henriquez stressed that the current police operation could last all night until the attackers are routed. – Source.
Update: A squad of gunmen assassinated Haitian President Jovenel Moïse and wounded his wife in an overnight raid on their home Wednesday, with police killing four suspects and arresting two others hours later amid growing chaos in a country already enduring gang violence and protests of his increasingly authoritarian rule.
Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was “mortally wounded” and his wife shot during an armed attack in the middle of the night Wednesday at their private residence above the hills of Port-au-Prince, the country’s prime minister, Claude Joseph, said.
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The assailants claimed to be agents with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, according to videos taken by people in the area of the president’s home. Moïse, 53, lives in Pelerin 5, a neighborhood just above the hills in the capital.
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The attack happened a day after Moïse named a new prime minister, Ariel Henry, to take charge as head of the government and prepare the country for elections in the next two months for president, a new parliament and local government officials.
Ariel Henry was close to the opposition, while not not welcomed by the majority of the opposition (he also studied in France).
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