Former US drug agency informant arrested as a suspect in Haiti assassination.
One of the Haitian-American men arrested on suspicion of involvement in the assassination of the Haitian president last week was a Drug Enforcement Administration presenter, a DEA official said Monday.
Haitian authorities last week arrested two Haitian-American men, Joseph Vincent, 55, and James Solages, 35, and charged them with joining 26 Colombians in a brutal attack on Haitian President Jovenel Moise.
The officer, who asked not to be named, declined to say which of the two was a reporter.
“One of the suspects ,was a secret source of DEA ,in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise ,” the DEA official said in an email, adding that the suspect had contacted the DEA after the assassination and that he had asked him to surrender. . “The people were not working on behalf of the DEA.”
The suspect was not a witness at the time of the murder, a police source said.
A third Haitian American, Christian Emmanuel Sanon, was arrested on Sunday by Haitian officials, who accused him of being the leader of the attack.
Law enforcement agencies and U.S. intelligence agencies are investigating why Haiti-American men may be involved in the killings. Read more
The U.S. Department of Justice said Monday that Haiti had asked to support the investigation into Moise’s murder, and that it was doing so.
“The first assessment was done in Haiti by top US officials,” spokesman Anthony Coley said. “The department will also investigate whether there have been any violations of US criminal law in this regard.”
A source close to the investigation said Solages and Vincent told investigators they were interpreters of the Colombian commando unit that had Moise’s arrest warrant, but when they arrived they found Moise dead.
A “certified diplomatic agent” and a former “Commander-in-Chief of the Guard” at the Canadian Embassy in Haiti, Solages has described himself online ,. The information was released on the charity website he ran, which canceled them on Thursday. Reuters has reviewed the memory version that is still available.
The Miami Herald quoted an unidentified government official as saying that ten years ago Solages worked part-time for a company that provided security to the Canadian Embassy in Haiti.
“We are aware of allegations concerning a person who was temporarily employed as a reserve security guard by a security company employed by Global Affairs Canada in 2010,” the newspaper said, quoting the official.
Florida records show Solages had security guards and weapons licenses.
A few details have emerged about Vincent.
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