At least one of the men arrested for the killing of Haitian President Jovenel Moise was the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) informant while several others may have had ties to the FBI, CNN reports.
Following Moise’s assassination, the suspect reached out to his contacts at the DEA, which urged him to surrender to the local authorities.
The agency confirmed that one of the suspects detained by the Haitian authorities was at times a confidential source to the DEA, but it officially denied that the attackers were acting on its behalf faced with reports that some assassins yelled “DEA” at the time of their attack.
FBI, on the other hand, said only that it uses lawful sources to collect intelligence.
Haitian President was killed last Wednesday by attackers – three of which are US citizens- who reportedly claimed to be DEA agents and who were later identified as Colombian mercenaries hired through a Florida-based US security company CTU Security.
Although the DEA is present in Haiti, the link to the DEA Caribbean regional activities in the website of the US embassy in Port-au-Prince only leads to an error message.
According to the White House, a delegation from the US, including representatives from the State Department and Department of Homeland Security, returned from Port-au-Prince on Monday and briefed President Joe Biden, who pointed later that the people of Haiti deserve peace and security.
The White House has so far demonstrated caution in getting directly involved, which may be a reflection of Biden’s wariness at meddling into another foreign conflict, but is still reviewing Haiti’s interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph’s request for troops.
NSC spokesperson Emily Horne previously informed that the US delegation reviewed the security of critical infrastructure with Haitian government officials and met with the Haitian National Police, who are leading the investigation into the assassination.
While the US law enforcement and intelligence agencies are investigating why the Haitian-American men may have taken part in the assassination, the Justice Department said on Monday it would investigate if there were any violations of US criminal law in connection with the assassination considering the growing number of Florida connections to the plot portrays an operation at least partly conceived in the US.
Justice Department’s spokesman Anthony Coley noted that senior US officials conducted initial assessment in Haiti that could bring charges against any US participants in the plot and are trying to establish if there were any violations of US criminal law in connection with this matter.
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