Suspects in Haitian President’s Killing Met to Plan a Future Without Him

Haitian officials accuse the suspects of meeting to plot President Jovenel Moïse’s assassination, but participants say the sessions were intended to plan a government once the president stepped down.

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Several of the central figures under investigation by the Haitian authorities in connection with the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse gathered in the months before the killing to discuss rebuilding the troubled nation once the president was out of power, according to the Haitian police, Colombian intelligence officers and participants in the discussions. The meetings, conducted in Florida and the Dominican Republic over the last year, appear to connect a seemingly disparate collection of suspects in the investigation, linking a 63-year-old doctor and pastor, a security equipment salesman, and a mortgage and insurance broker in Florida. All have been identified by the Haitian authorities as prominent players in a sprawling plot to kill the president with the help of more than 20 former Colombian commandos. But the ties between them have been murky, at best, and until recently it was not clear how, or even if, they knew one another.