One Year After Haiti's President Assassinated, Investigation Stalls

PortauPrince, July 7 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 7th Jul, 2022 ) :One year after Haitian president Jovenel Moise was shot to death at his home in Port-au-Prince, no suspected mastermind or motive has yet been identified, with the investigation stalling amid a crumbling political environment.

Moise was assassinated in the early hours of July 7, 2021, when a commando group entered the president's private home and shot him 12 times, killing him.

The same day, Haitian police mobilized exceptionally quickly to arrest about 20 people, including 18 former Colombian soldiers presumed to be hired as mercenaries.

But that initial speed has since been followed by a crawling legal process in Haiti and the United States.

The sluggishness has only worsened in recent weeks as the prosecutor's offices in the Haitian capital have for the last month been invaded by one of the many gangs plaguing the country, whole sections of which are controlled by the often violent criminal bands.

The inquiry's delays have also further complicated Haiti's existing political crisis.

The Caribbean island nation's presidency has been vacant since Moise's death, with no date set for a vote to fill the office.

No fewer than five successive judges have been in charge of the case, but none of them have issued any charges for the 40 people currently imprisoned in connection with it.

Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who was named to his post just two days before Moise's death, is suspected of speaking with one of the prime suspects via telephone just hours after the attack -- a line of investigation which he calls a "distraction."Parliament has not functioned properly in two years, as Moise had not organized elections since he himself took office in 2017. And without a head of state to appoint judges, the country's judicial system has also flagged.