Former Drug Trafficker Receives Life Sentence for Supplying Weapons in Assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse in Miami Trial

Businessman Rodolphe Jaar, with dual Haitian and Chilean nationality, is the first convicted for the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse. A federal court in Miami on Friday imposed a life sentence on him for selling weapons and ammunition to the commando of Colombian mercenaries who shot dead the head of state in his residence in Pétion-Ville on July 7, 2021.

Nicknamed “Dodof”, this former informant of the DEA (American narcotics squad) had already been convicted in 2013 for drug trafficking, and spent three years in detention in the United States before returning to Haiti. In the hope of benefiting from the clemency of the judges, Jaar had this time pleaded guilty. Disappointed hope. He will serve his sentence “in South Florida”, said the president of the court.

Of the forty people identified by the justice of the United States as having taken part in the plot to kill the president, eleven are behind bars. The other ten are awaiting trial. American justice has indeed the hand on this investigation, its Haitian counterpart showing itself unable to carry out its work, in the current context of politico-economic chaos and disintegration of the State. A situation greatly aggravated by the assassination of Jovenel Moïse, whose successor has still not been elected. Former Prime Minister Ariel Henry has served in the interim for nearly two years.

A list of ripoux

The Miami trial did not bring any new elements to the magnicide of Pétion-Ville, a town adjoining the capital Port-au-Prince. Investigators think they know the main lines of the sequence of events that cost the life of Jovenel Moïse. In the months preceding the attack, a rumor circulated in the country according to which the DEA had compiled a list of political and economic officials (including members of the government) linked to drug trafficking. Haiti is indeed covered with clandestine airstrips where heavily loaded small planes from Colombia or Venezuela land.

Personalities who feared being cited among the ripoux, and feared a commando-type intervention by the DEA, would have tried to short-circuit the operation by attacking the President, supposed to know the list. After surviving the attack, Martine Moïse, wife of the President, said the assailants, who presented themselves in the middle of the night as American anti-drug agents, were looking for “papers”, and that they left with documents. Was the death of the head of state planned in the scenario, or is it an accident? The question is still not settled, any more than that of the existence or not of the famous list.

Another line of inquiry was revealed in a long investigation of New York Times in December 2021. Relations had deteriorated between Jovenel Moïse and his predecessor and political godfather, singer Michel Martelly said «Sweet Micky». The President would have decided to put a stop to a traffic organized by the brother-in-law of Martelly, not of narcotics but of an animal species: the zanguis. These eel fry, called pibales or civelles in the south-west of France, are highly sought after by gourmets in Asia who pay for them at the price of caviar. A mafia bought this product for a derisory sum from fishermen and resold it for gold.

The fate of the detained Colombian mercenaries

The next trial in Florida could be that of Mario Antonio Palacios, a former Colombian soldier in charge of commanding the group that entered the President’s room. The appearance of this key man, who cooperated with American justice, was scheduled for April but was postponed. To date, 17 Colombian mercenaries remain imprisoned in Haiti (three died during the assault on the residence).

In a letter addressed in April to President Gustavo Petro, the families of several of them complained of the impasse in which their loved ones find themselves. No date has been set for their trial, telephone communication with them is impossible, medicine and food parcels have not arrived, and they are deprived of the assistance of lawyers or interpreters.

The national penitentiary of Port-au-Prince where they are recluse has also been a major focus of cholera in recent months. “They cannot remain in detention indefinitely without being tried”, moved lawyer Sondra McCollins, spokesperson for the families.