A retired Colombian military officer was sentenced to life in prison in Miami on Friday for his role in the 2021 assassination of former Haitian President Jovenel Moïse in Port-au-Prince.
• Also read: Assassination of former Haitian president: Ex-Colombian soldier pleads guilty
German Rivera, considered one of the leaders of the mercenary group that shot the ex-president on July 7, 2021, pleaded guilty to three charges in September in federal court in Miami, Florida.
Mr. Rivera, a former captain in the Colombian army, was tried under American law because the assassination plan was partly developed in Florida, although it was carried out in the Haitian capital.
With his ankles and hands bound and wearing a brown prison uniform, the defendant refused to speak before the verdict was announced.
He is the second person to be convicted in the United States over the death of Jovenel Moïse. In June, a businessman of Haitian and Chilean nationality, Rodolphe Jaar, was sentenced to life in prison for supplying weapons to the killers.
Jovenel Moïse, 53, was shot dead in his home near the capital Port-au-Prince by a commando of more than 20 trained people, mostly Colombians, without his guards intervening.
The operation was initially aimed at kidnapping President Moïse, but turned into an assassination attempt, according to court documents.
An American investigation found that two men at the head of a security company, CTU, in Miami had plotted to seize Mr. Moïse in order to replace him with an American-Haitian, Christian Sanon, who wanted to become the country’s president.
The death of Jovenel Moïse plunged Haiti into further chaos, as the small Caribbean nation was already plagued by gang violence. The latter now control 80% of the capital, and the number of serious crimes has reached record levels in the country, according to the UN representative.
No elections have been held since 2016 and the presidency has been vacant since Mr. Moïse’s assassination.
The UN Security Council gave the green light in early October for the deployment of a multinational non-UN mission led by Kenya to help the overwhelmed Haitian police.