Two people were arrested and detained Tuesday in connection to the assassination of Haiti’s former president.
The news was according to one of the suspect’s lawyers, the New York Times reported:
The suspects, Antonio Intriago, a Venezuelan-American businessman, and Arcángel Pretel Ortiz, a Colombian-American citizen, were detained in South Florida and were expected to appear in court later on Tuesday, a lawyer for Mr. Intriago said.
Their company, CTU Security, based in Doral, Florida, recruited some 20 former Colombian soldiers who helped storm the home of the Haitian president, Jovenel Moïse, the night of his assassination in July 2021. Lawyers for Mr. Intriago previously admitted that CTU recruited the men.
Joseph Desmond, Intriago’s lawyer, said he planned to enter a not guilty plea, and confirmed Pretel’s arrest and that of a third suspect named Walter Veintemilla.
Per the Times, he is an American citizen and financier. He reportedly lent over $170,000 to CTU Security for operations in Haiti.
Video footage shows the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Markenzy Lapointe, making the announcement. He also added a fourth person had been arrested.
He said agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Homeland Security Investigations made the arrests “for their alleged participation in the plot to forcibly remove President Moïse from office.”
When assailants entered Moïse’s residence that is located outside Port-au-Prince, he was shot multiple times, ultimately killing him and wounding his wife.
Following the killing, gangs took control of most of the area, which is the nation’s capital.
In January, Haitian police rioted in Port-au-Prince while also attacking the home of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, Breitbart News reported.
“The police were enraged that gangs have killed 14 officers over the past month, raising the death toll to 78 since Henry became prime minister in 2021,” the outlet continued:
The demonstration began with about a hundred police officers in plain clothes and a comparable number of civilians marching through the streets of Port-au-Prince to denounce the latest police killings: the execution-style slaying of six officers by a gang called Gan Grif in northern Haiti.
Meanwhile, Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness said recently his country is willing to join with a U.N.-proposed multinational military force to help fight the criminal gangs in Haiti, according to Breitbart News.
According to the Times, authorities did not give details about charges for the men arrested this week.
Intriago reportedly said he was unaware of the assassination plans. He claimed it was initially planned that Moïse be arrested, forced to step down, and a Haitian American pastor named Christian Emmanuel Sanon installed in his place.
“CTU Security recruited the Colombian mercenaries and looked for funding from Mr. Veintemilla to finance the operation to arrest Mr. Moïse. The firm hoped to provide security for infrastructure projects in Haiti that Mr. Sanon intended to undertake once he became president of the country,” the newspaper said.
However, in the days before the assassination took place, Sanon was deemed a non-viable candidate, so the plan eventually turned into an assassination, per the Justice Department.