Haiti’s Prime Minister dismisses the prosecutor who wants to investigate him

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Prime Minister of Haiti, Ariel Henry, announced Tuesday (14) the dismissal of the prosecutor Bel-Ford Claude hours after he asked a judge to open an investigation of the head of the government as a defendant in the assassination of President Jovenel Moise.

Henry communicated the prosecutor’s dismissal in a letter dated Monday but released today by the Government. The dismissal is justified by an alleged “serious administrative misconduct” committed by Claude.

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The prosecutor asked the Court of First Instance of Port-au-Prince to investigate Henry as a defendant in the assassination case and asked the immigration authorities to prevent him from leaving the country.

The prosecutor’s suspicions about the prime minister were raised by two telephone conversations Henry had with one of the main suspects in the assassination, Joseph Felix Badio, three hours after the crime took place last July 7.

The prosecutor assures that the geolocation data of the calls, provided by the telephone company, placed Badio at Moise’s residence, in the Pélerin 5 sector in Port-au-Prince, at the time he communicated with Henry.

Claude had questioned the prime minister’s role in the assassination since last week when he extended an invitation to clarify the controversial calls. The trial is currently under the jurisdiction of examining magistrate Garry Orélien, so any summons or subpoena of witnesses or defendants is up to the judge and not the prosecutor.

Henry dismissed the prosecutor’s subpoena last Saturday during the signing ceremony of a political agreement, and today he referred to it again, albeit in a more veiled manner, assuring that nothing will distract his will, not even “threats of all kinds” or “physical attacks”.

“No distraction, no summons or invitation, no maneuver, no threat, no rearguard combat, no aggression will distract me from my mission,” Henry said last Saturday.

Haitian authorities have remanded 44 people in custody for their alleged involvement in the assassination, including the 18 Colombian mercenaries accused of being part of the commando that killed Moise. The group also includes 12 police officers who were part of the president’s security corps, which did not react to the attack.