Five Years After Jovenel Moïse's Assassination: US Justice Advances, Haitian Justice Remains Silent!
By La Rédaction · Port-au-Prince
· 4 min read · Updated 24 April 2026
Translated from French — AI-assisted and reviewed by the editorial team. The French version is authoritative. Read the original · About our translation policy
Haiti still seems to have no idea who assassinated President Jovenel Moïse! A heavy burden!
Nearly five years after the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, two judicial timelines now appear to be at odds. One progresses patiently, case by case. The other seems suspended, as if frozen in the silence of a state that still struggles to interrogate its own tragedy.
In the United States, justice continues its work. In Haiti, the investigation still seems trapped in an interminable wait. In Florida, jury selection began on March 9 in the federal trial of four men accused of participating in the plot that led to the assassination of the Haitian head of state on the night of July 7, 2021. The accused, Arcangel Pretel Ortiz, Antonio Intriago, Walter Veintemilla, and James Solages, are being prosecuted for conspiracy to kidnap or assassinate President Moïse, as well as for several other charges related to this operation. If convicted, they face life imprisonment.
A fifth defendant, Christian Sanon, a Haitian-American doctor presented by investigators as the candidate some conspirators intended to install in power after President Moïse's overthrow, was initially scheduled to be tried alongside the other defendants. However, his case was separated for medical reasons and will be the subject of a distinct trial at a later date.
Since the opening of the American investigation, several responsibilities have already been established. Five individuals involved in the plot have pleaded guilty and are currently serving life sentences. A sixth person was sentenced to nine years in prison after admitting to providing bulletproof vests to the conspirators, while claiming not to have been informed of the assassination plot.
US judicial documents also indicate that South Florida served as a planning and financing hub for the operation. Several meetings were reportedly organized there to prepare for the overthrow of the Haitian president and to discuss the formation of a new political power favorable to the conspirators' interests. According to investigators, some agreements even included the awarding of contracts in the fields of infrastructure, security, and military equipment.
Thus, through the hearings, US justice is methodically reconstructing the mechanics of a crime that has shaken Haiti's recent history. Meanwhile, in the very country where the crime was committed, the picture offers a striking contrast.
The local investigation remains paralyzed by a combination of factors: widespread insecurity, threats against magistrates, the fragility of institutions, and the progressive collapse of the judicial system.
However, the question of resources cannot be entirely dismissed. The 2025-2026 national budget allocates approximately 42 billion gourdes to the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, representing nearly 12% of the national budget. In a functional state, such an allocation should enable complex investigations, protect magistrates, and ensure the normal functioning of judicial institutions.
But the problem seems to go beyond mere financial matters.
It touches on something deeper: the actual capacity of the Haitian state to produce truth. For the assassination of a head of state is never an ordinary crime.
It is an institutional ordeal. It exposes the fragilities of a political system, tests the solidity of institutions, and measures a country's capacity to defend the rule of law. In many democracies, such an event triggers a resurgence: commissions of inquiry, judicial mobilization, and a tenacious search for the truth. Justice then becomes the place where a nation attempts to recover. In Haiti, on the contrary, time seems to have settled into a form of silent waiting. Some explain this paralysis by the state of the prison system: attacked prisons, destroyed or abandoned facilities, difficulties in ensuring the detention of suspects. But is this explanation truly sufficient? For even the most basic information remains uncertain. The country still does not have a precise count of the exact number of prisoners who escaped during attacks on penitentiary establishments. A state that cannot say how many detainees have disappeared from its prisons already struggles to measure the extent of its own crisis. However, justice is not limited to prison walls. It is, first and foremost, a will. A will to seek the truth, to assign responsibilities, and to protect the collective memory of a people. History teaches a simple lesson: it is not only budgets, weapons, or infrastructure that elevate a nation. It is its institutions and, above all, its justice. Where justice speaks, truth illuminates the future.
Where it acts, responsibility builds trust. But where it remains silent, impunity always ends up governing. And perhaps that is where the true tragedy lies. For while in Miami jurors prepare to hear the details of a plot conceived in the shadows, Port-au-Prince continues to dwell in a heavy silence, as if time itself hesitated to move forward. However, a people cannot live indefinitely on the margins of their own drama. For when a president is assassinated and the truth is slow to emerge, it is not only an investigation that gets bogged down: it is the memory of a country that becomes troubled. And when a nation stops seeking the truth about its own destiny, it always ends up letting history be written elsewhere. And rarely in its favor. Yves Lafortune, Miami, March 10, 2026
It touches on something deeper: the actual capacity of the Haitian state to produce truth. For the assassination of a head of state is never an ordinary crime.
It is an institutional ordeal. It exposes the fragilities of a political system, tests the solidity of institutions, and measures a country's capacity to defend the rule of law. In many democracies, such an event triggers a resurgence: commissions of inquiry, judicial mobilization, and a tenacious search for the truth. Justice then becomes the place where a nation attempts to recover. In Haiti, on the contrary, time seems to have settled into a form of silent waiting. Some explain this paralysis by the state of the prison system: attacked prisons, destroyed or abandoned facilities, difficulties in ensuring the detention of suspects. But is this explanation truly sufficient? For even the most basic information remains uncertain. The country still does not have a precise count of the exact number of prisoners who escaped during attacks on penitentiary establishments. A state that cannot say how many detainees have disappeared from its prisons already struggles to measure the extent of its own crisis. However, justice is not limited to prison walls. It is, first and foremost, a will. A will to seek the truth, to assign responsibilities, and to protect the collective memory of a people. History teaches a simple lesson: it is not only budgets, weapons, or infrastructure that elevate a nation. It is its institutions and, above all, its justice. Where justice speaks, truth illuminates the future.
Where it acts, responsibility builds trust. But where it remains silent, impunity always ends up governing. And perhaps that is where the true tragedy lies. For while in Miami jurors prepare to hear the details of a plot conceived in the shadows, Port-au-Prince continues to dwell in a heavy silence, as if time itself hesitated to move forward. However, a people cannot live indefinitely on the margins of their own drama. For when a president is assassinated and the truth is slow to emerge, it is not only an investigation that gets bogged down: it is the memory of a country that becomes troubled. And when a nation stops seeking the truth about its own destiny, it always ends up letting history be written elsewhere. And rarely in its favor. Yves Lafortune, Miami, March 10, 2026
