A Haitian-American citizen involved in the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was sentenced to life in prison in Florida on Friday.
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Joseph Vincent, 58, was on trial in federal court in Miami. He was initially arrested in Haiti and extradited to the United States in January 2023 to answer for this assassination attempt.
Jovenel Moïse was shot dead by an armed commando in his private home in Port-au-Prince on the night of July 6-7, 2021, without his bodyguards intervening. His death further exacerbated the chaos in this small, poor Caribbean country.
The American judiciary then initiated proceedings against eleven people who were accused of involvement in the assassination attempt, on the grounds that the conspiracy had been hatched in Florida.
Four of them were sentenced to life in prison, including Joseph Vincent, who pleaded guilty in December.
On Friday he appeared in a prison jumpsuit. He turned to the audience and said, “Please forgive me for what I have done.”
According to the Miami Herald newspaper, the convicted man had previously worked as an informant for the DEA, the American federal agency that combats drug trafficking.
The other defendants sentenced to life in prison in the case are a former Haitian senator, Joseph Joel John, a businessman of Haitian and Chilean nationality, Rodolphe Jaar, and a retired Colombian soldier, German Rivera.