MOISE TORTURED BEFORE DEATH, HAITI’S ACTING PRIME MINISTER SAYS

Sun 11 July 2021:

Late Haitian President Jovenel Moise was tortured before his death at the hands of the alleged mercenaries, Interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph has said.

Moise was fatally shot in an attack on his private residence in the early hours of Wednesday. His wife was injured in the incident and later sent to a Miami hospital for recovery.

“Mercenaries came to the president’s house, they tortured him and they killed him,” Joseph said in an interview with ABC news, promising justice for what has transpired.

According to Haiti’s police, a group of 26 Colombians and two Americans of Haitian descent are suspected of having carried out the assassination. The National Police said on Friday that 18 Colombian and two American suspects had been detained.

Swearing-In As Interim Leader Postponed

Meanwhile, President of the Haitian Senate Joseph Lambert, who was nominated as interim leader by the Senate on Friday, says his swearing-in has been postponed.

“The Senators have decided to postpone the swearing-in scheduled for this afternoon. They all want to be present to actively participate in the inauguration. There is an urgent need to rebuild hope in our country,” Lambert said on Twitter on Saturday.

Haiti’s Senate, which currently consists of only a third of its members, adopted a resolution on Friday, declaring Lambert interim president following the assassination of President Jovenel Moise. The Senate said that Lambert would take a constitutional oath in parliament and would be installed in his functions immediately after that, to form a new government.

Nation not to “lose its way”

The widow of slain Haitian leader Jovenel Moise, on Saturday issued her first public remarks since the assault, calling on the nation not to “lose its way.” Martine Moise’s comments came three days after she was airlifted to a Miami hospital for treatment of grave wounds suffered early Wednesday when gunmen stormed the family home in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince.

They also come as the impoverished Caribbean nation reels from the slaying of its leader, with no clear succession plan on the horizon.

“I am alive, thanks to God,” Martine Moise said in an audio message in Creole that was posted on her official Twitter account, and verified as authentic to AFP by Haiti’s minister of culture and communications, Pradel Henriquez.

“In the blink of an eye, the mercenaries entered my home and riddled my husband with bullets … without even giving him a chance to say a word,” she said.

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