WEB DESK
A former Colombian military officer has been charged in the U.S. in connection with the assassination of Haiti’s President Jovenel Moïse last July.
The U.S. justice department said, Mario Antonio Palacios is accused of having participated in a plot to kidnap or kill the Haitian president. Palacios appeared at a Miami court on Tuesday to hear the charges against him.
Jovenel Moïse was shot dead on 7 July by gunmen who stormed his residence in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince. While several arrests have been made in Haiti in connection with the killing, Palacios is the first suspect to face charges.
In a statement on Tuesday, the U.S. justice department said a complaint was filed in the state of Florida accusing Palacios, along with a group of about 20 other Colombian nationals and dual Haitian-American citizens, of conspiracy to commit murder or kidnapping outside the U.S. Palacios was recently arrested during a stopover in Panama after being deported to Colombia from Jamaica.
He agreed to travel to the U.S., which had issued an Interpol red notice requesting his arrest. He is now in U.S. custody and, if convicted of the charges, he faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.