A U.S. investigation into the assassination of Haiti’s president took a leap forward this week with the arrest of a convicted Haitian drug trafficker who is accused of playing a key role in providing housing, weapons and other support to a group of Colombian commandos suspected of murdering Jovenel Moïse in his home outside Port-au-Prince in July.
Rodolphe Jaar, 43, who agreed to be flown to Miami on Wednesday after his recent arrest in the Dominican Republic, is also accused of meeting with a Haitian American co-conspirator before carrying out the deadly plot and of helping him and the other ex-Colombian soldiers hide in the aftermath of Moïse’s assassination, according to an FBI criminal complaint and affidavit unsealed Thursday.
During an interview in December while in hiding in Port-au-Prince and weeks before his arrest, Jaar admitted to U.S. investigators that “he provided firearms and ammunition to the Colombians to support the assassination operation,” the FBI affidavit says. “He stated that the operation changed from an arrest ... (to remove Moïse from office) to an assassination operation after the initial plan to ‘capture’ the Haitian president at the (Port-au-Prince) airport and take him away by plane did not go forward.”
