Exclusive: Documents Reveal Threats and Obstacles in Haiti Assassination Investigation

Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) -

There was no question about the meaning of last week's anonymous text message: Do what we say or die.

"Hey, secretary, get ready for a bullet in the head, they gave you an order and you keep doing shit," read the July 16 message, one of several death threats sent to court clerks assisting in the Haiti investigation. on the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, according to official complaints filed with the Haitian police and seen by CNN.

They are part of a cache of documents from the Ministry of Internal Justice obtained exclusively by CNN, revealing never-before-heard testimonies from key suspects, mysterious attempts to influence the investigation and the grave danger that judicial investigators feel when trying to discover who killed the man. president on July 7.

Death threats are not the only thing making the work of Haitian investigators difficult.

Various sources have also described to CNN a number of unusual obstacles placed on investigators, including difficulty accessing crime scenes, witnesses and evidence.

The result is an investigation that has repeatedly deviated from established protocol, according to independent legal experts.

The question is why?

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Death threats and strange requests

Several Haitian officials have received death threats since their investigation began two weeks ago, documents show.

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Carl Henry Destin, the justice of the peace who officially documented Moïse's devastated home and body hours after his shooting, went into hiding just two days later.

"As I speak to you now, I am not at home. I have to hide somewhere far away to talk to you," Destin told CNN, describing in quick French the multiple threatening phone calls she had received from strangers.

Clerks who work with Destin and other investigating judges have also been targeted, according to documents obtained by CNN.

On July 12, the National Association of Haitian Employees published an open letter calling for "national and international" attention to the death threats received by two local employees, Marcelin Valentin and Waky Philostene.

The letter demands an action from the Minister of Justice, Rockefeller Vincent, to ensure his safety.

Valentin and Philostene did not respond to requests for comment on the letter.

More than a week later, Justice Ministry documents offer little evidence that such concerns were taken seriously, showing that employees went on to file formal complaints in person on July 17 and 20 about death threats, from the same issue of telephone.

Particularly disturbing is the timing of the threats, which may suggest an insider's knowledge of the investigators' movements.

• Suspects of the assassination of Haiti wait in limbo, with their relatives in the dark

Documents show that Valentin received an intimidating phone call on July 9, while he was documenting two bodies of suspects in the murder.

According to the official complaint register, the caller demanded information about the investigation and threatened Valentín with death if he refused to add certain names to his report or modify the statements of the witnesses.

The complaint does not detail the names or the statements.

The following week, according to the same complaint, Valentín received a text message:

"I see that you are still doing searches in the case of the president, they told you to get two names and you refuse. I call you and you refuse but I know your every move."

On Monday, the prosecutor in charge of the case, Bedford Claude, told CNN: "Everyone receives threats," including himself.

He added that he would work to organize more security for investigators.

Neither the Minister of Justice nor the Haitian National Police responded to CNN's requests for comment.

No entry to the crime scene

Moïse mural outside his residence in Port au Prince.

The official revelations about the Haiti investigation into the brutal murder of Moïse still don't add up.

There are obvious gaps in the information provided to the public, including the as yet unknown content of CCTV footage of the president's residence on the night of the assassination and the testimonies of more than 20 detained foreign suspects and two dozen local police officers.

Now it appears that even Haitian investigators accused of exposing the truth are going dark.

At crime scenes in Haiti, the police generally secure the area and maintain order, while justices of the peace conduct the initial investigation, document the scene, and take witness testimony to create the official record of evidence.

But sources close to the investigation have described confusing lapses in the protocol that resulted in the omission of key pieces of information from court investigators' reports.

Sources told CNN that court investigators were turned on multiple occasions when they tried to view the CCTV footage, which is being held by the police.

Destin also said that he and others were not immediately allowed to enter the site where Moïse was attacked around 1 a.m.

Despite his vital role in documenting the scene, the judge was barred from entering the police perimeter for hours - a highly unusual delay that, according to informants, raises the specter of evidence tampering.

"The police informed me that the scene was not yet clear to allow (me) to go to the scene to collect evidence," he told CNN.

"I had to wait until 10:00 am. At that time, they later informed me that the police were at the scene and that we could now access the presidential residence."

According to Destin, the police explained that the attackers were still nearby and posed a possible danger.

But sources say the judge and his team had to wait just outside the president's residence, where they would have been equally exposed to chance encounters with murderers on the run.

"I've never heard of anyone preventing a judge and his clerks from entering the crime scene," said Brian Concannon, an expert on the Haitian legal system.

"I suppose it's possible that if the police felt like a bomb was going to go off, I suppose they would have the right to cordon off everything. But in terms of how it's supposed to work ... The judge and the police are both entrusted to do the same. , respond to the crime scene, "he said.

Meanwhile, sources tell CNN that FBI agents who visited the presidential residence a few days after the assassination were shocked to find a large amount of evidence left there by Haitian police and wondered why it had not yet been collected.

Special agents collected the additional evidence, and sources say Haitian authorities have allowed them continued access to it.

• Amid strong security measures, this was the funeral of Jovenel Moïse, assassinated president of Haiti

Missing witnesses

The Haitian judicial police facility, where key suspects and evidence are located.

Things only got stranger inside the presidential residence, where multiple sources close to the investigation confirm that the presidential guards - potentially key witnesses to the assassination - were removed or allowed to leave the premises before they could be interviewed.

"When I got to the president's house, there were no police officers in the security booth as was always the case. Once I identified myself as a judge, some officers came without proper identification and proper badges. They appeared to be official police officers. but I can't say exactly who they were, "Destin said.

The few witnesses that were available had not seen the initial confrontation with the assassins of the president.

According to a report seen by CNN, Destin was able to interview Jean Laguel Civil, the presidential chief security coordinator, who is currently wanted by the police in connection with the case.

"

President Jovenel Moïse called me around 1 a.m. to tell me that he heard many shots outside his residence and asked for help. I immediately called Dimitri Herard, head of USGPN (palace security) and (security officer Paul Eddy ) Amazan, who mobilized their troops quickly.

"They told me that the road was blocked and that they couldn't get to the president's house. Dimitri told me that all the guards couldn't get there. I was coming down from my house ... but a group of mercenaries coming from the president's house President detained me. Luckily they did not do me any harm, "

reads part of Civil's statement in the report.

The report also shows that the president's daughter, Jomarly Moïse, testified in court despite the terrifying experience she had just undergone and the dramatic loss of her father.

However, the many security guards who swore to protect the president, who had been in the house during the attack, were absent.

"I was informed that none of those who were there the night of the murder were present," Destin told CNN. "I did not have the opportunity to speak to anyone who was on the scene during the attack."

Twenty-four police officers are currently under administrative investigation, according to Haitian Police Chief Leon Charles, and several security chiefs have been detained.

But more than two weeks after the murder, the clerks and judges responsible for processing the testimony have still not heard from them.

The prosecutor in the case, Bedford Claude, says he is satisfied with the work of the police and that they worked closely together.

However, even he has not heard testimony from any police stationed at the presidential residence on the night of the attack, he told CNN.

"The Central Directorate of the Judicial Police (DCPJ) has listened to (their testimony). For my part, I have asked the DCPJ to bring them here so that I can listen to them," Claude said.

The prosecutor refused to answer whether he had seen the CCTV images from inside the residence.

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Corpses moved

Sources close to the investigation also tell CNN that they have doubts about whether the correct protocol has been followed in the processing of evidence and handling of crime scenes.

Documents from the Ministry of Justice dated July 8 show that judicial officials were summoned to document the bodies of two suspects in front of a police station in the exclusive mountainous neighborhood of Petion-Ville, where the president's residence is also located. . Along with the bodies were found the Colombian citizenship cards of Mauricio Javier Romero and Duberney Capador Giraldo, the latter former officer of the Colombian army who had allegedly recruited many alleged attackers.

But the bodies had been moved, say several sources.

As CNN previously reported, several suspects were killed in an empty store around the corner, during the police chase after the murder.

Several cars in the area believed to have belonged to the attackers were also set on fire, an act of destruction that authorities blame on angry local residents.

Moving bodies and allowing possible treasures of evidence to be destroyed are a red flag for possible tampering with the crime scene, experts and insiders say.

"There are a lot of things that don't make sense in crime scene management. Cars were burned ... that's the kind of thing that seems inconsistent with trying to figure out the exact truth," Concannon said.

"Investigators should question the people involved in changing the crime scene to establish whether they had a good reason for making those changes," he added.

The wounds found on Romero's body also raise questions about how he was killed: Investigators found a gunshot wound to the back of his head, according to the report.

Port-au-Prince street where investigators examined the bodies apparently belonging to Colombians Mauricio Javier Romero and Duberney Capador.

In the same report, investigators took statements from James Solages and Joseph Vincent, two US citizens allegedly conspirators in the assassination plot, whose versions of events had not been made public until now.

"I turned myself in to the police because I am only a translator. I only knew that there was a court order against the president, I was there to translate. The mission was to pick him up and take him to the national palace, my role was to stay in the car. I was the one who had it. the megaphone that you saw in the videos with my colleagues that you see here at the police station. I was the one who told the police not to shoot. We are 26 or 27 guys ... I found the job on the Internet because I speak French, English and Spanish, "

the Solages statement reads.

According to the report, Vincent told investigators that he, too, was a translator and that the alleged attackers were carrying a document that appeared to be an arrest warrant for the president.

In another statement, Vincent described how he was told by former Haitian justice official Joseph Badio to leave the home of another man, Rudolphe Jaar, the night of the attack and go to the president's private residence:

"It was 1 am when Badio called us and told us that the president was at home watching football and we headed there. When we arrived, it was Solages who took the megaphone to tell the president's guard not to shoot, he shouted" This is a DEA operation, "and people at the president's residence started shooting. There were 28 of us and the Colombians managed to get into the house. I hid somewhere and after a moment I heard Colonel Mike call someone on the phone and say the president was dead. "

Jaar and Badio are wanted by the Haitian police.

The identity and nationality of "Colonel Mike" is unclear.

• Duque says some Colombian suspects knew the mission was to kill the president of Haiti

Masterminds still at large

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With so much about the murder and its investigation still unknown, what may be more surprising is how little Haitian judicial investigators have been allowed to know about the very case they must handle.

Any possibility that the Haitian police are withholding information from investigators could raise concerns about a conflict of interest, at a time when dozens of police officers and security chiefs are under suspicion of links to the case.

However, none of the CNN sources have made specific allegations about who could be responsible for the multiple protocol violations.

Haitian legal expert and former judge Jean Senat Fleury told CNN that he fears many more legal norms have been violated in the course of the current investigation.

Haiti's constitution prohibits the questioning of witnesses without a lawyer or witness of their choice, and requires an independent judge to rule on the legality of detaining any suspect for more than 48 hours.

More than two weeks after the murder, there has been no public announcement of formal charges against any suspect in the case, and police have repeatedly refused to comment on whether the detainees have access to legal representation.

Simple negligence or disorganization in Haiti's justice system, which still relies heavily on a paper-based filing system, may have been the real obstacles to the investigation so far.

"Having an investigation where things seem obvious, like the content of surveillance footage ... is this due to systemic dysfunction or is it because someone didn't want this to be publicly known? The system makes it very difficult let you know which of the two options it is, "Concannon said.

But the uncertainty surrounding the investigation fuels fears of dark and mysterious forces in a city where kidnapping and gang violence already threaten everyday life.

If the intellectual authors of the murder of the most powerful man in the country cannot be brought to justice, can anyone?

• Former Haitian Justice Ministry Official Is A Key Figure Behind Assassination Plan, Says Colombian Police

"The birds of prey are still running through the streets, their bloody claws are still searching for prey," First Lady Martine Moïse told mourners at her husband's funeral on Friday, in apparent reference to her husband's killers.

Moïse herself recently returned after receiving treatment in Miami for injuries sustained in the attack, accompanied by US security guards, CNN sources say.

"They are not even hiding," he continued, speaking to the political elite gathered in Haiti.

"They are here, they just look at us, listen to us, hoping to scare us."

CNN's Evan Perez contributed to this report from Washington.