PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Authorities in Haiti on Thursday forcefully pushed back against reports that current government officials were involved in the killing of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, calling them “a lie.”
Léon Charles, head of Haiti’s National Police, denied a report from Caracol news, a Colombian-based private TV station, that claimed interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph was the mastermind of the July 7 killing.
“The police warns of all propaganda creating a diversion,” he said, adding that the government has no evidence to support those claims.
Haitian authorities have otherwise not been very forthcoming with information about who might have been behind the killing, suggesting that media reports implicating current officials had struck a nerve in the government.
In Colombia, Gen. Jorge Luis Vargas, the head of that country’s national police force, told reporters that he had no information suggesting Joseph had any role in the plot.
Meanwhile, U.S. President Joe Biden said Thursday that he will send U.S. Marines to bolster security at its embassy in Haiti but that deploying American troops to stabilize the country is “not on the agenda.”
Haiti’s interim government last week asked the U.S. and the United Nations to deploy troops to protect key infrastructure following the assassination.
Mathias Pierre, Haiti’s elections minister, told The Associated Press that he believes the request for U.S. troops is relevant given what he called a “fragile situation” and the need to create a secure environment for elections scheduled to happen in 120 days.
He also said the words “not on the agenda” leave the option open.
Charles, the police chief, said the head of Moïse’s security detail, Dimitri Hérard, had been removed from his post and placed in isolated detention after officials interrogated him.
Hérard has not officially been named as a suspect in the investigation, but many Haitians have questioned how attackers could have invaded the president’s house and killed him with no injuries among those assigned to protect him.
Joseph, the interim prime minister, was about to be replaced when the assassination occurred.
