Head of Haitian presidential guard detained as hunt for masterminds behind assassination continues

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti â€" The head of security at the presidential palace here has been taken into custody as part of an investigation into the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, who was killed last week in his home in the hills above the capital.

The head of Haiti’s National Police, Leon Charles, confirmed Thursday that Dimitri Hérard, head of the presidential guard, had been removed from his position as well. It was unclear whether Hérard was facing any charges in relation to the killing.

Bed-Ford Claude, a Haitian prosecutor, told The Washington Post that the country’s justice system “wants [Hérard] to answer questions.”

Growing public anger has been directed against the presidential security chief as Haitians wonder how a team of alleged assassins appeared to easily infiltrate Moïse’s residence only to swiftly be taken into custody later.

The development comes as more questions are being raised about who knew what about the operation. In a radio interview Thursday, Colombian President Iván Duque confirmed that some of the former Colombian service members arrested after last week’s assassination had believed they were in Haiti to serve as bodyguards, but that a “smaller group” within that group appeared to have knowledge of plans for a “criminal operation.”

The Pentagon also confirmed Thursday that some of these former Colombian service members arrested had previously received U.S. military training.

A week after the killing in Haiti, arrests continue. Police announced Wednesday evening that two new suspects, including a former top police officer, had been detained. Four high-ranking members of the president’s security detail are also being held in isolation as authorities continue to track down other fugitives, police chief Léon Charles told reporters during a news conference.

It wasn’t clear whether Hérard was among the four people whom Charles referenced. A senior Haitian police official did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Hérard’s detention.

“The investigation is very advanced,” Charles said, according to the Associated Press. “We are looking for these assassins, and wherever they go we need to capture them, arrest them and bring them to justice.”

Officers searched the home of Gilbert Dragon, a former police superintendent and one of the two people whose arrest was announced Wednesday. They confiscated several cartridges, firearms and bulletproof vests, police said in a statement.

Dragon is close to Hérard, the presidential guard’s chief, according to Pierre Espérance, head of a human rights group that has extensively studied the country’s security forces. Dragon is also a close associate of Guy Philippe, one of Haiti’s best-known rogue revolutionaries â€" now behind bars in the United States.

Philippe, a former Haitian police officer who left the force about the same time as Dragon, led a successful 2004 coup against then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. In 2017, he was sentenced to nine years in the United States for conspiracy to launder drug money.

According a 2017 Justice Department statement, Philippe admitted accepting between $1.5 million and $3.5 million in cocaine profits from Colombian traffickers in return for allowing them to use Haiti as a transit point for shipping cocaine to the United States between 1999 and 2003.

By pleading guilty to conspiracy to launder drug money as part of a plea deal, Philippe avoided drug-trafficking charges that could have resulted in a life sentence.

The other suspect named by police Wednesday, a Haitian man identified as Reynaldo Corvington, is accused of providing the suspects housing and giving them sirens to use on top of their cars. He is alleged to have worked with James Solages, a U.S. citizen who was detained in recent days, according to the Associated Press.

Corvington owns a private security company called Corvington Courier & Security Service. The company was founded in 1982 and provides personal bodyguards and “threat identification and risk assessments,” according to a presentation on its website.

Authorities in Haiti are investigating Moïse’s killing with help from senior FBI and Department of Homeland Security officials and Colombia’s government. Bogotá said at least 18 Colombian nationals, many of them former soldiers, have been arrested and remain detained in Haiti on suspicion of committing the assassination. Three other people of Haitian ancestry also have been arrested and at least three suspects killed, as police continue to investigate those detained to identify the masterminds behind the slaying.

Evidence of links to the United States has also complicated matters. The Pentagon confirmed Thursday that some of the former Colombian soldiers had received U.S. training, but it did not provide further details and said that an investigation was ongoing.

“A review of our training databases indicates that a small number of the Colombian individuals detained as part of this investigation had participated in past U.S. military training and education programs, while serving as active members of the Colombian Military Forces,” Lt. Col. Ken Hoffman, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement to The Washington Post.

One leading suspect is Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a 62-year-old Haitian with long-standing ties to Florida, who police say was aiming to assume the country’s presidency. They allege that Sanon, who is in custody, recruited some of the assailants accused of helping kill Moïse through a Venezuelan security firm based in the United States by telling them they would be his bodyguards. Moïse was killed inside his home early on the morning of July 7.

An American humanitarian worker who says he lived for three months in Sanon’s palatial Port-au-Prince home after a devastating earthquake in 2010 described him as a “strange person.”

Ryan Jackson, a physician who was working for a Miami-based nonprofit that partnered with Sanon’s foundation to deliver earthquake relief, said the Haitian offered him a job in return for Jackson’s help publicizing his activities.

“Having an American doctor on staff was like a feather in his cap,” Jackson told The Post. “I refused. I did not like him.”

Sanon could not be reached for comment, and it wasn’t clear whether he has retained an attorney.

A number of suspects in Moïse’s killing remain on the run. They include John Joël Joseph, a Haitian political rival to Moïse’s party, whom police have reportedly accused of providing weapons used in the attack.

Police are also seeking Rodolphe Jaar, who was indicted in 2013 in a U.S. federal court on charges of conspiring to smuggle cocaine from Colombia and Venezuela through Haiti to the United States, according to the Associated Press.

Haiti, considered the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, has seen deepening unrest since the assassination of Moïse, prompting humanitarian fears across the region. The country had been the only nation in the Americas with no doses of coronavirus vaccine until Wednesday, when 500,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine donated by the United States arrived in Port-au-Prince.

A White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said additional doses would soon be sent to the country.

Pannett reported from Sydney. Horton and Taylor reported from Washington. Emily Rauhala contributed to this report.

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