A US court on Tuesday December 19 sentenced a former Haitian congressperson to life in jail over his role in the 2021 death of Haitian President Jovenel Moise.
After pleading guilty in October 2023 to three charges, including providing material support and resources to carry out the plot to kill Moise and conspiring to kill and kidnap a person outside of the United States, Joseph Joel John was given a sentence by the Miami federal court. John was removed from Jamaica in May 2022.
Moise was killed during an attack on his private home in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince on July 7, 2021. Haiti’s first lady, Martine Moise, was additionally shot but later recuperated.
A reasonable affidavit filed in support on the side of the criminal grievance in 2022 charges that John owned up to getting vehicles and guns to support the plot. He also owned up to going to a meeting with co-schemers daily before Moise was killed, according to an affidavit from an FBI agent.
The US Department of Justice stated that John was the third individual charged with the murder of Moise. Mario Antonio Palacios and Rodolphe Jaar were both arrested and charged in 2022.
Jarr, a Haitian-Chilean national, was sentenced to life in June after an earlier guilty plea on three counts, including conspiracy to commit murder or kidnapping outside the US and providing material support resulting in death, according to the plea agreement.
Court records show Palacios, a Colombian national, is scheduled to show up in court not long from now.
Various Haitian American residents and somewhere around 20 Colombians partook in the plot, as per the Department of Justice.
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Haiti has seen extending turmoil since Moise’s death, with the spread of posses and a rush of viciousness that has cleared the ruined Caribbean country. Prime Minister Ariel Henry, Moise’s successor, has had difficulty stopping the violence up until this point.
Attacks carried out by gangs on rival villages have included beheadings, rapes, and kidnappings, according to a report released last month by the UN Human Rights Office and the UN Integrated Office in Haiti.
In October, the UN Security Council approved the deployment of a multinational support mission to help Haiti’s national police fight gang violence, with Kenya taking a leading role and pledging 1,000 police to the mission.
Nonetheless, the announcement did not specify when the security forces would arrive in Haiti, and the deployment has been tied up by legal challenges.
