Haiti restarts investigation into murder of president Jovenel Moise

Not one suspect imprisoned in Haiti has faced trial after being accused in the killing of President Jovenel Moïse, who was gunned down at his home nearly four years ago.

Gang violence, death threats, and a crumbling judicial system have stalled an ongoing investigation defined by outbursts and tense exchanges between suspects and judges. Six Haitian judges have been assigned to investigate whether there is sufficient evidence to warrant a trial for the twenty suspects still detained in the troubled Caribbean country.

Among them are 17 former soldiers from Colombia and three Haitian officials: a former mayor, a former policeman, and Joseph Badio, who once worked for Haiti’s Ministry of Justice and at the government’s anti-corruption unit until he was fired for alleged ethics violations.

Three other suspects, all Colombians, were killed hours after Moïse was slain. The initial investigation into the case was repeatedly halted as some Haitian judges resigned because they feared for their lives.

Now, judges are tasked with starting the investigation anew.

But determining who might be complicit in the president’s death is only one of numerous challenges they face. The tension in the hearing has carried over into the interrogations of the Colombian suspects, who denied participating in the killing and maintain they were hired by a Miami-based security firm and told they’d be going to Haiti to provide security for a power plant, a water treatment plant, and diplomatic officials, as well as train Haitian police and soldiers.

The Colombians have also repeatedly denounced their poor treatment in the Haitian prison.

“I have been subjected to degrading treatment. I have been subjected to physical and psychological torture,” said Jheyner Alberto Carmona Flores during a recent hearing.

Restarted hearings in high-security setting

Last year, powerful gangs seized control of the courthouse in downtown Port-au-Prince, where the judges were interrogating suspects in the Moïse case.

The hearings were suspended until the government found a private home to rent in a community in southeast Port-au-Prince, which was once considered.

But gangs that control 85% of Haiti’s capital recently attacked that area, forcing the government to suspend the hearings and move again. In May, the hearings restarted, this time in a private home in Pétionville at a heavily guarded stone-and-concrete house in a leafy residential community in Haiti’s capital.

According to court documents, the original plan was to detain Moïse and whisk him away, but the plan evaporated after the suspects couldn’t find a plane or sufficient weapons. While the case in Haiti has stalled, the U.S. has charged 11 extradited suspects, with five already pleading guilty to conspiring to kill Haiti’s president.

Five other suspects are awaiting trial, which is now scheduled for March 2026.