US Extradites 18 Suspects in Haitian President's Assassination to Face Trial in Florida

Eighteen suspects who were arrested in the July 2021 killing of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse were being extradited to the U.S. on Sunday, marking the end of a drawn-out judicial process in Haiti for a killing that shocked the troubled Caribbean country. The suspects will face justice in Florida, according to Jason Reding Quiñones, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida. “Today marks the next major phase in our pursuit of accountability for the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse,” he wrote on X. “We will follow the evidence wherever it leads, to those who financed it, facilitated it, supported it or committed crimes to make it possible. Five years later, we are still bringing defendants before American courts, and we are not finished.” Quiñones did not identify the suspects, and a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday. The suspects who remained in Haiti awaiting trial included 17 Colombian soldiers and Joseph Badio, a former Haiti Ministry of Justice employee who was part of an anti-corruption unit. Badio, considered a key suspect, was arrested in Haiti in October 2023 after being on the run for more than two years. Defense attorneys in the U.S. for other suspects have asserted Badio was the mastermind behind a plan to use the president’s arrest to assassinate Moïse. Authorities have said some of the suspects envisioned a coup, not an assassination, and the Colombian soldiers have testified in Haiti that they were beaten, threatened with death and forced to sign documents in a language they don’t understand.