The retired Colombian Army captain Germán Rivera has assured that a former official of the Haitian Ministry of Justice, Joseph Badio, ordered him to “kill everyone” at the home of President Jovenel Moise days before the assassination.
“He said that everyone had to be killed (…) the police, the president’s security, everyone who was inside the house had to be killed,” said Rivera, known as ‘Mike’ and leader of the group of mercenaries. allegedly involved in the assassination of the Haitian president.
According to Rivera, initially the plan was to arrest Moise, but Badio told him that the orders were not the same and that his objective now was not to leave anyone alive in the presidential house.
Colombians have provided certain details about how the crime was conceived, revealed by Noticias Caracol. Thus, on July 7 at 01.00 (local time) the Colombians left in six cars with the aim of executing Moise. They were accompanied by Badio, James Solages and four local policemen.
“The first vehicle was with three policemen and two of the 20 men here. They arrived at a point where the police were and they stopped and neutralized the police who were there,” said Sergeant Ángel Yarce. For his part, Sergeant Duberney Capador would supervise the operation inside the house and Rivera would wait at the entrance.
Another of the soldiers involved, Second Lieutenant Jheyner Carmona Flórez, has declared along the same lines as Rivera. “‘Mike did say that he had to go in and kill everyone, he had to kill all the policemen, or rather, there was even the pet to be killed, that there could be no witnesses,” he reported.
“They sold us the idea that it was the arrest warrant, that they did tell us, that it was an arrest warrant, yes, but ‘Mike’ told us that he did have to peel (kill) the president,” he added.
In reference to who killed Moise, two of the detained Colombians have pointed to Víctor Pineda as the person who shot him, according to information from Noticias Caracol, collected by the Colombian press.
Moise was assassinated on July 7 in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince. Ariel Henry assumed the position of Prime Minister of Haiti in the midst of the crisis after the assassination of Moise, who appointed him to the position two days before his assassination, so he did not take office and the former interim Prime Minister, Claude Joseph, was in charge of the Government until he presented his resignation.
Henry’s government has received the support of the international community with a view to holding the general elections scheduled for September 26, even when he will have to lead a polarized, impoverished country in one of its most difficult and violent moments.
