Four people have been convicted in the United States in connection with the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise.
Arcangel Pretel Ortiz, Antonio Intriago, Walter Veintemilla and James Solages were found guilty on Friday of conspiring to kill or kidnap Moise, whose assassination left a political vacuum in the Caribbean nation that has compounded overlapping security and humanitarian crises.
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They were also convicted of providing material support for the plot in violation of US law. All four face possible life sentences.
US prosecutors have said that the south of Florida, the closest US state to Haiti, served as a central hub for planning and funding Moise’s assassination.
During the trial, which began nearly two months ago, the defence argued that the defendants were scapegoats.
They claimed they had instead been involved in a plan to serve Moise an arrest warrant, amid a dispute about whether the president had overstayed his term.
They further maintained that Colombian mercenaries involved in the assassination were meant to accompany Haitian police to execute the warrant, but that Moise was killed by his own security forces before they arrived.
“This is a Haitian plot, and it is a Haitian conspiracy,” defence lawyer Emmanuel Perez said, as reported by the Miami Herald.
US prosecutors, in turn, charged that the men initially sought to remove and replace Moise, but the plan eventually escalated to assassination.
A fifth defendant, Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a Haitian-born doctor who allegedly wanted to be named president after Moise was killed, was set to be tried at a later date due to health issues.
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Eight other individuals accepted plea deals as part of the US investigation.
No national elections have been held in Haiti since Moise’s assassination, although a provisional council was appointed in September 2024 to organise new polls.
The council has since been replaced by US-backed Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime, who has said elections will be held by the end of the year.
The UN has said a stable government is essential to restoring order in Haiti, which has been beset by a series of natural disasters and rising violence, with criminal gangs controlling large swaths of territory.
At least 8,100 gang killings were documented in 2025, with insecurity displacing about 1.5 million people, according to the UN.
