Widow of Haiti president describes his killing at US trial of four charged with conspiracy

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MIAMI (AP) — The widow of Jovenel Moïse — Haiti’s last elected president -- described being shot and wounded during the 2021 assassination of her husband while testifying Wednesday in the U.S. federal trial of four men charged with conspiracy in the case.

Martine Moïse returned to the stand in a Miami courtroom after testifying for about an hour the day before. She had been the prosecution's first witness, following opening statements by attorneys on Tuesday.

Jovenel Moïse was killed in the early morning hours of July 7, 2021, when about two dozen foreign mercenaries — mostly from Colombia — attacked his home near Port-au-Prince, officials said.

Arcangel Pretel Ortiz, Antonio Intriago, Walter Veintemilla and James Solages are charged in Miami federal court with conspiring in South Florida to kidnap or kill Haiti’s former leader. Jovenel Moïse’s assassination led to unprecedented turmoil in the Caribbean nation, where gang leaders have grown increasingly violent and empowered.

Testifying Wednesday, Martine Moïse described through a Creole interpreter how she went to bed around 10 p.m. the night before the attack and awoke to the sounds of gunfire about three hours later. She said she turned to her husband in bed next to her to ask what was going on.

“Honey, we are dead,” Jovenel Moïse said, according to his wife's testimony.

Martine Moïse said gunfire continued as she crawled downstairs to check on her two adult children. She said she then returned to her and her husband's bedroom, where she and Jovenel Moïse got on the floor on either side of the bed and used it as protection from gunfire.

Men eventually burst into the room and opened fire with what sounded like an automatic weapon, Martine Moïse said. She was struck several times. She said she heard men speaking in Spanish before someone shot Jovenel Moïse multiple times, killing him.

After the attackers cleared out, Martine Moïse said she expected to find the dead bodies of the 30 to 50 security officers assigned to protect the house, but there were none. She said she later learned that they were paid to leave their posts.

Moïse was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment and then flown to a Miami hospital for surgery. She testified that her right arm remains disabled and she still has pain.

Defense attorneys asked if Moïse was aware that she was under investigation in Haiti in connection to her husband's death. She said the people behind her husband's killing are now in power and that she has fled the country for her own safety. She said she has offered to answer questions remotely, but that the people who killed her husband want her to return to Haiti so they can also kill her. Moïse was previously indicted in the case, but the charge was later annulled.

The defense also asked Moïse about inconsistencies between her testimony and earlier interviews with the FBI. She insisted that her current statements were correct and couldn't explain discrepancies in FBI reports.

Attorneys for the four men on trial have argued that the investigation initiated in Haiti was a mess and that their clients were manipulated into taking the blame for an internal coup.

According to prosecutors, South Florida was a central location for planning and financing the plot to oust Moïse and replace him with someone the conspirators chose.

All four defendants face possible life sentences and have pleaded not guilty.

Ortiz and Intriago were principals of Counter Terrorist Unit Federal Academy and Counter Terrorist Unit Security, collectively known as CTU, and Veintemilla was a principal of Worldwide Capital Lending Group. Both companies were based in South Florida.

Solages was a CTU representative in Haiti who investigators say coordinated with others, including Christian Sanon, a dual Haitian-U.S. citizen whom the conspirators initially favored to replace Moïse.

Defense attorneys have said the group was working with FBI agents, U.S. Embassy officials and members of the Haitian government in what they believed was the lawful arrest of a criminal president. The defense has pointed to Joseph Félix Badio, a former Haitian government worker who was arrested in Haiti in 2023, as the mastermind behind a plan to use the president's arrest to assassinate Moïse.

U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Becerra has blocked out more than two months for the trial.

Five others previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in the U.S. and are serving life sentences. A sixth person was sentenced to nine years behind bars after pleading guilty to providing body armor to the conspirators. Sanon's trial will be scheduled later.

Seventeen Colombian soldiers and three Haitian officials face charges in Haiti. Gang violence, death threats and a crumbling judicial system have stalled the investigation.

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