Haiti: Suspected presidential killers arrested

by time news

NAfter the murder of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, suspects have been arrested. The police intercepted alleged assassins of the head of state near the crime scene on Wednesday afternoon, a government spokesman said on Twitter. At first there were no further details.

On Wednesday night (local time), unknown persons broke into the residence of 53-year-old Moïse in a suburb of the capital Port-au-Prince and shot him. His wife Martine was injured and brought to the US city of Miami 1,000 kilometers away for treatment, Haiti’s ambassador to the United States, Bocchit Edmond, told international media. According to initial findings, the attackers were foreigners who posed as members of the US anti-drug agency DEA.

UN Security Council is looking into the situation

According to the Haitian Embassy in Washington, it was a well-coordinated attack by a well-trained and heavily armed group. Interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph said in an address to the nation that the perpetrators spoke English and Spanish.

Governments around the world reacted with dismay to the attack, which is likely to exacerbate the crisis in the Caribbean country, which is marked by instability and great poverty. The UN Security Council will deal with the situation in Haiti on Thursday.

The US called for parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for September to be held as planned. This could restore a functioning parliament and enable a peaceful transfer of power to a new president, said the spokesman for the US State Department, Ned Price.

Moïse had last ruled Haiti by decree after a parliamentary election planned for 2018 was postponed, among other things because of protests against him. In the past four years, Moïse has changed the head of government four times. It was only on Monday that he announced the appointment of the new head of government Ariel Henry, who was to replace Joseph after only three months in office.

The opposition accused the president of unlawfully holding onto his mandate. Moïse, who took office in February 2017, had always argued that his term of office normally ended in February 2022. From the point of view of his political opponents, however, Moïse’s mandate expired in February of this year. The reason for the dispute is the cancellation of the result of Moïses first choice due to allegations of fraud. A year later he was elected again.

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