Family of Haiti president murder suspect seeks protection

The fate of an accused suspect and previous politician in the murder of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse has at the time a lot more been place on hold although authorities in Jamaica ponder whether to grant his spouse and two kids asylum.

Former Haitian Senator John Joël Joseph, who has been billed with unlawful entry into Jamaica following he, his wife and two sons had been arrested previous month in rural St. Elizabeth parish, was instructed by a judge Tuesday to return to court docket on March 3. This is the 2nd time that Joseph, whose vacation documents list his previous identify as John, has experienced his case postponed.

For the duration of an initial visual appearance right after his arrest, his situation was pushed back again to February 15 soon after his lawyer, Donahue Martin, asked the courtroom for additional time.

On Tuesday, Martin confirmed to the Miami Herald that the matter experienced been remanded for March 3 following he verified to the courtroom that he has submitted an application to Jamaica’s Passport Immigration and Citizenship Agency (PICA) for refugee standing on behalf of the previous senator’s wife, Edume, 38, and sons Schopenhauer, 17, and Abaku, 9.

“They have a perfectly-founded concern that if they are returned to Haiti they would be subjected to persecution and acts of violence,” Martin mentioned.

Getting refugee status in Jamaica is incredibly unusual. Jamaica’s Ministry of Countrywide Safety will want to convene a committee, which will then determine if the three are qualified to keep on being in the state as refugees.

Martin would not comment on the standing of John Joël Joseph, who is the subject matter of an arrest warrant in Haiti and was amid several suspects at big when he and his household have been arrested at a house by associates of the Counter Terrorism & Organized Crime Device and the St. Elizabeth divisional police.

U.S. authorities, nevertheless, have their eyes on Joseph and FBI brokers have previously started off interviewing him, in accordance to sources familiar with the situation.

Haitian police allege that Joseph was in speak to with a number of of the suspects jailed in link with the assassination plot and attended conferences about the assault. A 124-webpage Haiti National Law enforcement investigative report attained by the Herald also accused him of paying for the rental motor vehicles that were being to be utilized in the assassination.

Joseph was the 2nd critical suspect in Moïse’s July 7 assassination to be taken into custody in Jamaica right after arriving by boat and applying a well-liked “Guns for Ganja” criminal route among Haiti’s southern coastline and the country’s English-speaking Caribbean neighbor to escape authorities following months of hiding in Haiti.

In Oct, Mario Antonio Palacios Palacios, 43, a retired Colombian sergeant, was arrested in Kingston following staying tracked there by U.S. Homeland Safety Investigations brokers. He had earlier concealed in Haiti for months.

Palacios is at the moment in U.S. federal custody following becoming detained in Panama last month although on his way back to Colombia immediately after a decide in Jamaica ordered his deportation.

This story was originally posted February 15, 2022 4:01 PM.