Haitian authorities have extradited eighteen suspects accused in the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse to the United States to face federal criminal prosecution in Miami.
The group transferred into American custody includes more than a dozen former Colombian soldiers and a former Haitian government official who had been detained in Port-au-Prince. United States Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones announced that the defendants will stand trial in the Southern District of Florida on charges related to the deadly conspiracy. Moïse was fatally shot in July 2021 at his private residence by a heavily armed assault team, an attack that plunged Haiti into an unprecedented security and governance crisis.
Federal prosecutors in Miami have already secured several convictions and life sentences for individuals who coordinated financing and logistics from South Florida. The latest transfer marks the culmination of protracted judicial wrangling in Haiti and expands the reach of the ongoing United States investigation into the conspiracy.