As authorities from multiple countries attempt to get to the bottom of the July 7 assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moïse, a new suspect has been named.
According to a Friday (July 16) report from The New York Times, Gen. Jorge Luis Vargas, who operates as head of Colombia’s national police, has named former Haitian intelligence officer Joseph Felix Badio as the person who gave the order for Moïse to be killed. As was previously reported, ex-Colombian soldiers were arrested as suspects for the crime.
Vargas says that Badio had originally told former Colombian soldiers Duberney Capador and Germán Alejandro Rivera Garcia that the plan was to arrest the president of Haiti, but a few days before that was to take place, he changed the instructions. What was originally set to be an arrest became an assassination.
Badio is reportedly still at large, and Haitian police have issued a warning notice calling for him to be arrested. They believe he also helped organize the group of attackers who attacked Moïse and his wife, who was seriously wounded by gunfire by the same group that killed her husband.
This news arrives a few days after it was reported that Joseph Gertand Vincent, who was one of the suspects arrested for a role in the killing, had been a source for the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). After the killing of Moïse, the source contacted DEA officials to tell them about the assassination, and from there, they reportedly encouraged him to turn himself in, and he did.
The death of Moïse sent shockwaves through Haiti and the world at large. One of the first celebrities to speak on the matter was Wyclef Jean, who is a native of Haiti.
“Saddened by the dramatic daily events in Haiti,” he tweeted the day of the killing. “The assassination of @moisejovenel is an attack on the institution of the presidency & is a tragedy! My prayers r with his family & 4 my Haitian brothers & sisters who are the daily victims of this chaotic situation.”