The investigating judge Gary Orélien has confirmed the involvement of Prime Minister Ariel Henry in the assassination of President Jovenel Moise.
According to the American media CNN citing a recording of Judge Gary Orélien “Ariel (Henry) is linked and friendly with the mastermind of the assassination. They planned it with him. Ariel is a prime suspect in the assassination of Jovenel Moïse, and he knows it.
The authenticity of the recording was verified by CNN, which claims to have compared it with other recordings of the investigating judge. But the investigating magistrate denied having spoken to anyone in the investigation of the assassination of Jovenel Moise. “I don’t remember talking to anyone about the case in any detail,” he told the American media network.
Read the full translation of the article published this Tuesday by CNN.
The Haitian Prime Minister participated in the planning of the assassination of the President, according to the judge who oversaw the case.
CNN Exclusive: Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) In early September, a dozen heavily armed members of an elite Haitian law enforcement team sat quietly in several undercover vehicles in the capital of Port-au-Prince, the quiet of the night pierced only by the occasional passing motorcycle.
These seasoned officers had taken on high-profile targets before: oligarchs, drug traffickers, gang leaders and even politicians.
But this operation was different, according to lengthy conversations CNN had with two sources involved in its planning.
This time, if they succeeded in their mission, the sources said it would change the trajectory of an entire nation by helping investigators prove that their country’s prime minister was linked to an assassination.
About two months earlier, in the early morning hours of July 7, 2021, Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in the presidential residence.
More than two dozen gunmen invaded the president’s compound and met little or no resistance from the security forces charged with protecting the president.
Moses was killed by 12 bullets. His wife, Martine Moïse, was also shot several times but survived.
According to Haitian authorities, the man responsible for organizing the assassination team was a former Haitian anti-corruption official, Joseph Felix Badio, who was on the run.
But on that early September night, these undercover agents thought they knew exactly where Badio would be: at a meeting with Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry at his official residence in the capital.
A confidential informant had told the officers that Henry would meet with Badio that night. Since the assassination, the two men had already met twice in person, according to investigators.
For weeks, Haitian investigators believed that Henry himself was involved in planning the assassination and the subsequent cover-up.
A private meeting between Henry and one of the main suspects in the case, they believed, would connect the dots.
The plan was to arrest Badio when he left the house, and then, at a later date and with evidence of the meeting in hand, to arrest Henry as well.
But Badio never showed up.
Henry stayed inside all night, and after the sun came up, the officers decided to abandon their mission.
Investigators told CNN that they later learned that news of the raid had leaked out. Badio and Henry had been warned, they said, so they called off the operation.
The failed raid is just one example of how Haitian investigators have been thwarted in their attempts to investigate the president’s assassination.
Multiple police sources have told CNN that one man is at the center of this obstruction: Ariel Henry. We are not identifying them for security reasons.
These sources say they have established a series of questionable actions that they say detail the prime minister’s alleged involvement in the assassination: both plotting Moses’ death and helping to orchestrate the cover-up that followed. And, when two of the highest judicial authorities sought to establish potential charges against him, they were dismissed.
“Henry is at the center of everything,” one investigator told CNN. “All he’s done since he’s been prime minister is obstruct (the investigation) and get us in trouble.”
CNN’s calls to Henry have not been returned, although he has previously denied any involvement in the assassination.
The prime minister has often described solving the murder case as a personal mission.
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. No political maneuvering, no media campaign, no distraction will distract me from this goal of bringing justice to President Moses,” Henry told world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly in September.
Judge: Ariel linked…to mastermind.
The official investigation into the assassination continues in Haiti, but it is virtually dead. There have been no new arrests, no new suspects, and no evidence since August, but technically, it continues.
Dozens of suspects arrested in the first weeks after the assassination are still being held in a Haitian prison. None of them have been formally charged.
Until recently, Judge Garry Orélien was the top judicial official in Haiti overseeing the case.
In a recording taken in the fall of 2021, while he was still presiding over the investigation, Orélien makes his views on Henry’s involvement very clear.
“Ariel (Henry) is related and friendly with the mastermind of the assassination. They planned it with him. Ariel is a prime suspect in the assassination of Jovenel Moïse, and he knows it,” said Orélien in the recording, obtained exclusively by CNN.
CNN verified the recording against other known recordings of Orélien and through numerous conversations CNN has had with him, as well as voicemails. Orlien did not know he was being recorded.
“I don’t remember talking to anyone about the case in any detail,” Orelien said when asked about the recording. “A lot of people are trying to influence the case and I won’t play their game.”