Four convicted in US related to killing of Haitian President Jovenel Moise

Prosecutors charge Florida served as central hub in 2021 assassination of Moise, which sparked ongoing political crisis.Four people have been convicted in the United States in connection with the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise.Arcangel Pretel Ortiz, Antonio Intriago, Walter Veintemilla and James Solages were found guilty on Friday of conspiring to kill or kidnap Moise, whose assassination left a political vacuum in the Caribbean nation that has compounded overlapping security and humanitarian crises.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3Haiti’s transitional council hands power to US-backed prime ministerlist 2 of 3Press freedom declines in Americas, with US seeing sharpest drop: Reportlist 3 of 3At least 70 killed, 30 wounded in Haiti gang attack, rights group saysend of listThey were also convicted of providing material support for the plot in violation of US law. All four face possible life sentences.US prosecutors have said that the south of Florida, the closest US state to Haiti, served as a central hub for planning and funding Moise’s assassination.During the trial, which began nearly two months ago, the defence argued that the defendants were scapegoats.They claimed they had instead been involved in a plan to serve Moise an arrest warrant, amid a dispute about whether the president had overstayed his term.They further maintained that Colombian mercenaries involved in the assassination were meant to accompany Haitian police to execute the warrant, but that Moise was killed by his own security forces before they arrived.“This is a Haitian plot, and it is ⁠a Haitian conspiracy,” defence lawyer Emmanuel Perez said, as reported by the Miami Herald.US prosecutors, in turn, charged that the men initially sought to remove and replace Moise, but the plan eventually escalated to assassination.A fifth defendant, Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a Haitian-born doctor who allegedly wanted to be named president after Moise was killed, was set to be tried at a later date due to health issues.