Five years after the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, dozens of people arrested in connection with the killing in the troubled Caribbean nation are still awaiting trial in Miami.
Haiti has not had a president since a squad of gunmen killed Moïse and wounded his wife in an overnight raid at their home. U.S. prosecutors have charged more than 40 people with crimes related to the assassination and a dozen have been convicted, including five who are serving life sentences.
The trial of Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a Florida pastor and dual Haitian American citizen who authorities said aspired to be Haiti’s president, began Monday with jury selection. Opening statements were expected Tuesday. He faces eight charges connected to the assassination, including conspiring to kidnap or kill a person outside the U.S., and has pleaded not guilty.
Haiti’s President Jovenel Moise speaks during an interview at his home in Petion-Ville, a suburb of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Feb. 7, 2020.
Federal prosecutors in the U.S. say South Florida served as a central location for planning and financing the plot to oust Moïse and replace him with someone of the conspirators’ choosing.
Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas, and its history of dictatorship, political upheaval and foreign intervention has long stymied the consolidation of democratic rule.
Prosecutions being handled in the US
Moïse was killed on July 7, 2021, when about two dozen foreign mercenaries, mostly from Colombia, attacked his home near Port-au-Prince. The scheme to kill Moïse included paying mercenaries with money obtained from U.S. government programs that were intended to help businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to court records.
In 2025, justice officials in Haiti asked the U.S. and Canada for help after a local court of appeals ordered a new investigation into Moïse’s killing, the third inquiry of its kind since he was shot 12 times at his private residence. His wife, Martine, also was wounded in the attack.
The previous investigations were stalled because Haitian judges kept resigning from the case, fearing for their lives, and gangs seized control of the downtown Port-au-Prince courthouse where the judges were interrogating suspects.
Any proceedings in Haiti “continue to face significant difficulties,” the country’s Ministry of Justice and Public Security said recently.
Haiti has been overwhelmed by gang violence: More than 3,000 people were killed this year by June and about 1.5 million people have been displaced in recent years, according to the United Nations.
Prosecutors say conspiracy began months before killing
The plan to oust Moïse began to take shape in April 2021, when Sanon met in South Florida with a former Haitian senator and several U.S. businesspeople, according to an indictment. The group agreed that, once in power, Sanon would award contracts to Florida-based Counter Terrorist Unit Federal Academy and Counter Terrorist Unit Security, collectively known as CTU, for infrastructure projects, security forces and military equipment, investigators said.
CTU initially retained about 18 Colombian nationals with military training to provide security for Sanon, according to prosecutors. Conspirators also spent months obtaining weapons and body armor and attempting to build relationships with Haitian gangs, officials said.
By June 2021, the conspirators realized Sanon had neither the constitutional qualifications nor sufficient popular support to become president. They then backed Wendelle Coq Thélot, a former Haitian Superior Court judge. She died in January 2025 while still a fugitive.
Former first lady describes the attack
Martine Moïse described the attack while testifying earlier this year at the trial of four men who were ultimately convicted in the conspiracy to kill her husband.
She said she went to bed around 10 p.m. and awoke to the sounds of gunfire about three hours later. She said she turned to her husband in bed next to her to ask what was going on.
“Honey, we are dead,” Jovenel Moïse said, according to his wife’s testimony.
Martine Moïse said gunfire continued as she crawled downstairs to check on her two adult children. She said she then returned to her and her husband’s bedroom, where she and Jovenel Moïse got on the floor on either side of the bed and used it as protection from gunfire.
Men eventually burst into the room and opened fire with what sounded like an automatic weapon, Martine Moïse said. She was struck several times. She said she heard men speaking in Spanish before someone shot Jovenel Moïse multiple times, killing him.
After the attackers cleared out, Martine Moïse said she expected to find the dead bodies of the 30 to 50 security officers assigned to protect the house, but there were none. She said she later learned that they were paid to leave their posts.
Sanon’s trial begins
Sanon was previously scheduled to be tried with the four other men who were convicted earlier this year, but his case was separated and delayed for health reasons. Prosecutors have said Sanon helped raise money for the conspiracy and arranged travel to Haiti and lodging for himself and others on the island.
The latest defendants charged include Joseph Badio, a former Haiti Ministry of Justice employee, and 17 others described as Colombian mercenaries. They were recently transported to the U.S. from Haiti.
