Haitian-Chilean Rodolphe Jaar responds to US justice for the assassination of the President of Haiti

Rodolphe Jaar, suspect in the assassination of the Haitian president. HAITI NATIONAL POLICE

Six months after the assassination of the president of Haiti, Jovenel Moïse, the South Florida prosecutor's office has announced the initiation of an accusation against Rodolphe Jaar, who this Thursday appeared before a Miami Court where he must answer for crimes related to the assassination, which further deepened the political crisis in the Caribbean country.

Jaar, 49, was arrested Wednesday upon arrival in Miami and faces charges of "conspiring to commit murder or kidnapping outside the United States and providing material support resulting in death." Jaar is the second person to face trial in the United States for the assassination of the Haitian president after former Colombian soldier Mario Antonio Palacios was charged with that crime on January 4, also in a Miami court. In the file of the last of the detainees, according to local media, a process with the US authorities for drug trafficking is recorded. The last thing that was known about him was that he was working as an informant for the DEA, according to some media reports.

The investigation into the case has so far indicated that Joseph Félix Badio, a former official from the Haitian Ministry of Justice, was the one who gave the order to the Colombian ex-military allegedly hired to assassinate the president.

Also involved is the former Haitian senator

John Joël Joseph, who would have handed over the weapons to the mercenaries;

DEA informant Jaar;

Haitian businessmen, Desir Gordon Phenil and Ashkard Peter Joseph;

as well as Supreme Court Justice Windelle Coq Thelot.

For the assassination of the president of Haiti, John Joël Joseph was also arrested in Jamaica, where he had fled to hide from the authorities. Palacios, the former Colombian soldier, was also hiding in Jamaica, where he was arrested last October. Island authorities deported him to Colombia, but he was captured during a stopover in Panama and sent to Florida. There he is awaiting a court hearing to answer charges of conspiracy to commit murder or kidnapping outside the United States and providing material support that resulted in Moïse's death.

"Jaar was responsible for providing weapons to the Colombian accomplices to facilitate the operation," the prosecution detailed, adding that several of the Colombian accomplices also stayed in a residence controlled by him.

If convicted, Jaar could face a maximum sentence of life in prison.

His role in the assassination, according to the authorities

Jaar appears several times in the chronological account of the assassination, according to the authorities, when after the assassination of the president he allegedly communicated with another of those involved to discuss a plan to hide from the Haitian authorities.

The Prosecutor's Office indicated this Thursday that the accused and others, including the group of Colombians and several Haitian-Americans, participated in a plot that initially focused on kidnapping the Haitian president as part of an alleged arrest operation, but the plan changed and they turned out murdering him.

So far, about 40 people have been detained, including Haitian political personalities and 18 former Colombian soldiers who entered the president's residence.

According to an investigation by

Moïse was killed for trying to send the US a list of people linked to drug trafficking.

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