Haiti prosecutor asks judge to charge prime minister in president’s slaying

“There are enough compromising elements ... to prosecute Henry and ask for his outright indictment,” prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude wrote in the order.

Associated Press

Sep 14, 2021

Haiti’s chief prosecutor on Tuesday asked a judge to charge Prime Minister Ariel Henry in the slaying of the president and asked officials to bar him from leaving the country.

The order filed by Port-au-Prince prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude came on the same day that he had requested Henry meet with him and explain why a key suspect in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse called him twice just hours after the killing.

“There are enough compromising elements … to prosecute Henry and ask for his outright indictment,” Claude wrote in the order.

A spokesman for Henry could not immediately be reached for comment.

In this July 20, 2021 file photo, Haiti’s designated Prime Minister Ariel Henry, center, and interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph, right, pose for a group photo with other authorities in front of a portrait of slain Haitian President Jovenel Moise at the National Pantheon Museum during a memorial service for Moise in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (AP Photo/Joseph Odelyn, File)

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Claude said the calls were made at 4:03 and 4:20 a.m. on July 7, adding that evidence shows the suspect, Joseph Badio, was in the vicinity of Moïse’s home at that time.

Badio once worked for Haiti’s Ministry of Justice and at the government’s anticorruption unit until he was fired in May amid accusations of violating unspecified ethical rules.

In the two-page document, Claude said the calls lasted a total of seven minutes and that Henry was at the Hotel Montana in Port-au-Prince at that time. He also noted that a government official tweeted last month that Henry told him he never spoke with Badio.

Haiti's President Jovenel Moise — Haiti’s President Jovenel Moise speaks during an interview at his home in Petion-Ville, a suburb of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Sources say Moise was assassinated at home, first lady hospitalized amid political instability. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery, File)

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On Monday, Justice Minister Rockfeller Vincent ordered the chief of Haiti’s National Police to boost security for Claude because the prosecutor had received “important and disturbing” threats in the past five days.

Robert Fatton, a Haitian politics expert at the University of Virginia, said there is clearly a fight within the government between Henry and those who supported Moïse.

“We have a very confusing situation, a power struggle at the moment, and we will see who will win it,” he said. “It’s not clear where we are going, and it’s not clear what the international community thinks about everything.”

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