By Sarah Morland and Harold Isaac
Sept 22 (Reuters) - The United States over the weekend dramatically expanded its prosecution of the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise, indicting 30 people allegedly involved in the plot and flying 18 suspects out of Haiti and to the US.
The indicted include an alleged mastermind of the plot, 17 former Colombian soldiers, and a notorious gang leader linked to the abduction of 1 Canadian and 16 US missionaries just months after Moise's assassination.
WHAT CHANGED THIS WEEKEND?
While US prosecutors secured the indictment in August, they did not unseal it until the weekend.
Announcing what he called "the next major phase" of the case, US attorney for the Southern District of Florida Jason A. Reding Quinones said on Saturday that prosecutors were expanding their prosecution of people tied to Moise's murder.
Prosecutors allege the conspirators, operating in Haiti and Florida, hired Colombian mercenaries impersonating Drug Enforcement Administration agents to kidnap and ultimately kill Moise, and then install a US-Haitian doctor as his replacement.
According to the latest indictment, the plotters used a web of companies and pandemic-era loans to fund the plot, shipping body armor and other items to Haiti under fraudulent labels such as "medical x-ray vests."
A dozen people have previously pleaded guilty or were convicted in US court proceedings related to the assassination. Five received life sentences.
WHO WAS INDICTED?
Joseph Felix Badio, a former Haitian government official who worked in an anti-corruption unit, is the highest-profile defendant in the new US court case. Accused of masterminding the plot against Moise, Badio was rolled into a Miami court in a wheelchair on Monday.
Badio has said he is innocent and being made into a scapegoat. Gang leader Vitel'homme Innocent, who remains at large in Haiti, was also named. Innocent rose to international attention when the US alleged that he helped another gang carry out the 2021 kidnapping of 17 US and Canadian missionaries. Washington later offered a $2 million reward for information leading to his arrest.
In a rare interview with CNN two years ago, Innocent did not deny his followers have kidnapped people, but blamed this on a state of corruption, and said he hoped to defend himself from these allegations in court.
The latest indictment centers on Innocent's alleged efforts to help a Colombian mercenary and Haitian senator, both now serving life sentences after pleading guilty, evade capture after Moise's murder.
Prosecutors also charged five others accused of helping channel pandemic-era loans into funding the plot.
WILL THIS MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
Haitian political analysts said the latest indictments are another sign of a broken judicial system in Haiti, where five years of investigation into Moise's murder have failed to yield a single trial.
Others, however, hoped the US case could deliver long-awaited accountability.
"It's often a domino effect," said political analyst Chantal Elie on X. "One person speaks, another is arrested, a new name appears. Those we thought untouchable could in fact, not be so."
But Wolf Pamphile, who heads the Washington-based Haiti Policy Institute, said the indictment would not necessarily increase US pressure against gang leaders like Innocent in Haiti, where he faces serious charges.
"They know where he lives, they just can't get to him," he said.
(Reporting by Harold Isaac and Sarah Morland; Editing by Emily Green and Aurora Ellis)
