PORT-AU-PRINCE: The US and Colombia said yesterday they will send law enforcement and intelligence officials to help Haiti following the assassination of President Jovenel Moise and arrests of their nationals by Haitian authorities.
The US will send federal law enforcement officers to Haiti as soon as possible, the White House said yesterday, adding that strengthening Haitian capacity for law enforcement remains a key US priority.
Officers from the FBI and Department of Homeland Security will be involved, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said. “Our assistance is to help the people of Haiti and to help them get through a very challenging time,” Psaki said.
The head of Colombia’s national intelligence directorate and the intelligence director for the national police will also travel to Haiti with Interpol to help with investigations, Colombian President Ivan Duque said yesterday.
“We offer all possible help to find out the truth about the material and intellectual perpetrators of the assassination,” Duque wrote on Twitter, saying he had just spoken on the phone with Haitian interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph.
Colombian security sources said yesterday that several Colombians believed to be part of the commando unit that assassinated Moise in his home in the early hours of Wednesday had spent more than a month in Haiti before the killing, after entering via the neighboring Dominican Republic.
Police in Haiti said the assassination was carried out by a squad of 26 Colombian and two Haitian-American mercenaries. The two Haitian Americans were identified as James Solages, 35, and Joseph Vincent, 55, both from Florida.
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