Widow of Haiti’s slain president Jovenel Moïse files lawsuit against suspects

The widow and children of late Haitian President Jovenel Moïse have filed a lawsuit in a Miami-Dade County court, seeking a trial and unspecified damages against several suspects charged in the killing.

The family, the lawsuit said, is seeking to hold defendants “responsible for their heinous acts that resulted in President Moïse’s assassination and that injured” his wife, former first lady Martine Moïse. The head of state was shot a dozen times inside his private bedroom on July 7, 2021, and his wife was seriously injured.

There are currently 11 suspects in U.S. custody and with the exception of two, Walter Veintemilla, head of Miramar-based Worldwide Capital Lending Group and Rodolphe Jaar, a Haitian-Chilean businessman who recently pleaded guilty in the case — all have been found indigent by the court, meaning they have no assets.

“Not only do we want people to go to jail for this crime, but if they have any assets we want to take them. Nobody should be rewarded for this kind of action,” Paul Turner, the family’s attorney, told the Miami Herald. “And yes, some of these people won’t have anything, but some may. And so we’re going to pursue this lawsuit to identify everybody involved, what their roles were, and where possible take their assets.”

More than 40 individuals have been accused in the plot, in which 18 Colombian commandos are accused of storming the president’s residence along with Haitian police officers and two Haitian-Americans posing as translators. Nearly two years later, the case remains under investigation in both the United States and in Haiti, where the inquiry is on its fifth investigative judge.

While the jailed suspects in Haiti are still awaiting formal charges, in the United States, federal prosecutors have filed federal conspiracy charges in connection with the assassination. A trial date is tentatively set for May 6, 2024.

At least one of the suspects in federal lockup, Jaar, was recently given life in prison after pleading guilty to providing “material support” in the conspiracy to kidnap and kill Moïse.

“The Moïse family suffered a tremendous loss, as did Haiti and the Haitian people with the assassination,” Turner said. “And so while the criminal investigations are ongoing in the U.S. and Haiti, the family wants to pursue all avenues to ensure that all these conspirators to this crime are brought to justice.”

Turner filed the lawsuit on behalf of Martine Moïse as the legal representative of the estate of Jovenel Moïse; and the couple’s two children, Jomarlie and Jovenel Moïse Jr. The late president has an older son who is not a party to the suit.

The civil lawsuit names all 11 suspects currently charged in the U.S. criminal case as well entities controlled by some of them, such as Counter Terrorist Unit Security. The Miami-area firm is accused of hiring the Colombian soldiers to serve as bodyguards for Christian Emmanuel Sanon’s presidential aspirations while he was in Haiti. Sanon is the Haitian-American pastor and physician who wanted to replace Moïse as president. The firm is owned by Antonio Intriago.

The lawsuit states that “several masterminds and accomplices recruited, financed, trained, and housed a team of mercenaries; provided them with weapons, transportation, and other equipment; and orchestrated a plot to kidnap or murder the President of Haiti.”

“The mercenaries carried out this plan in the middle of the night by deceiving and restraining the heavily guarded home where President Moïse., First Lady Moïse., and their family were resting,” the lawsuit says. “The implausible goal of the co-conspirators, after the assassination of President Moïse in cold blood, was to install their own kangaroo government that would then summarily pardon the assassins.”

Turner said while the United States can only bring charges against and arrest individuals it has jurisdiction over, “we believe that there are other people involved outside of the United case that the U.S. doesn’t have jurisdiction over,” and the family wants this exposed to the public.

The Haitian investigative judge, Walther Voltaire, has continued to call individuals to provide testimony. Working much like a grand jury in the United States, Voltaire’s inquiry is secret.

Martine Moïse has declined a request to appear before Voltaire and asked for his dismissal.

“We do not want to take any action that could jeopardize the criminal proceedings here in the U.S. And if [Martine] Moïse was to go be interviewed, go give statements or whatever, it is possible that those could be used against her somehow in the U.S. government’s case,” Turner said. “I’ve requested that she refrain from providing any interviews or information to any sources outside the U.S. government.”

In recent days, however, Moïse has broken her silence, telling France24, among other things, that “the truth will come out one day.”

Earlier this month, she also met with Luis Almagro, the Secretary General of the Organization of American States, about her husband’s unsolved murder. She spoke about the need for the United Nations to appoint a special international tribunal similar to the one set up after the assassination of the Prime Minister of Lebanon, Rafiq Hariri, to look into her husband’s murder.

The former first lady was at home during the slaying and according to the civil lawsuit “attempted to hide under the bed, but assailants saw and shot her multiple times, leaving her for dead.”

Turner said Moïse’s refusal to go before the judge in Haiti is based on his counsel.

“The U.S. government’s prosecutors and agents are doing an amazing job of keeping the family informed of what’s going on in the investigation and the criminal proceedings, without of course, jeopardizing their case,” he said. “But we have the exact opposite experience in Haiti. It’s just there’s no transparency. There’s no communication. I mean, there’s not even an inventory of the items that were removed from the presidential palace from the home and the family’s personal property.”

Earlier this week, federal prosecutors filed additional charges in the case against some of the suspects, accusing them of conspiracy to carry out “a military expedition” from the United States against Haiti, a country that has peaceful relations with the U.S.

Intriago, the head of the CTU security firm, was also charged with conspiring with Sanon and Bergmann to illegally import bullet-proof vests into Haiti for the assassination plot.

Miami Herald staff writer Jay Weaver contributed to this report.