Colombian ex-soldiers in Moïse murder accuse Haiti of wanting to burn evidence

A representative of former Colombian soldiers jailed in the assassination of Haiti’s president says the group wants Haitian authorities to preserve the bodies of three former soldiers killed shortly after the slaying of Jovenel Moïse.

According to a Haitian police investigative report obtained by the Miami Herald, Colombians Duberney Capador Giraldo, Miguel Guillermo Garzon and Mauricio Javier Romero Medina were killed shortly after the July 7 assassination, and their corpses were examined by a Haitian judge.

Now, after nearly nine months, Haitian authorities want to cremate the bodies, Jose Espinosa told the Miami Herald. Espinosa belongs to a Colombian military nonprofit association that has been advocating for the families and the soldiers after their arrest in Haiti.

He said despite a request from the advocacy group, Haitian authorities seem determined to move ahead with the cremation. “Those who are in detention are in total opposition,” Espinosa said.

The reason for the opposition: claims by some of the jailed soldiers that the men who were killed were executed by Haitian police after they launched a nationwide manhunt for Moïse’s assassins.

“Those bodies have evidence not only of torture but also of their execution,” Espinosa said. “The skulls of the men killed have the evidence of their executions and the families of those that are alive are asking and have asked through the [military association] for them not to be cremated.”

Hours after the middle-of-the-night attack inside the president’s private residence above the hills of the capital, Haitian authorities announced that four suspects had been killed during a gun battle with police. No names for the dead were provided at the time, nor evidence linking them to the killing. Later, the number killed was revised to three without explanation.

They were among the group of suspected 26 Colombian assassins and two Haitian Americans accused in the attack. Capador, one of the men killed, has been cited by several jailed soldiers as a leader of the group, and according to the Haitian police investigative report, he was one of four mercenaries who made up a “delta” team that was inside the president’s bedroom when he and his wife, Martine, were attacked.

Two others were allegedly part of that team: Germán Rivera and Mario Antonio Palacios Palacios. Rivera, known as “Captain Mike,” is in a Port-au-Prince prison where he and 17 other former soldiers have yet to be formally charged in the stalled Haitian government investigation.

Palacios, a former Colombian sergeant known as “Flor,” is in detention in the U.S., where he is believed to be cooperating with authorities after being detained in Panama in January.

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