Tue | May 30, 2023

Former Haitian senator, family captured in Jamaica remanded

Published:Thursday | January 20, 2022 | 11:46 AM
According to a senior police officer, John Joel Joseph was listed among five fugitives for whom Haiti's Justice Minister Rockefeller Vincent said the country would offer six million gourdes for their arrests. 

The former Haitian Opposition senator linked to the assassination of president Jovenel Moïse was this morning remanded on immigration charges when he appeared in the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court. 

John Joel Joseph, was apprehended in St Elizabeth along with his wife Edume, their 18-year-old son Schopenhauer, and their 9-year-old son on January 14.

They too were remanded until February 15 after their lawyer, Donahue Martin informed Senior Parish Judge that Lori-Ann Cole Montaque that he needed more time to have further discussions. 

According to a senior police officer, Joseph was listed among five fugitives for whom Haiti's Justice Minister Rockefeller Vincent said the country would offer six million gourdes for their arrests. 

The other key suspect, ex-Colombian military officer Mario Antonio Palacios, was deported from Jamaica on January 3 in keeping with an order by the Supreme Court here after his immigration breach conviction. 

Palacios was intercepted in Panama by US law enforcement agents and taken to Florida where he was charged with various crimes related to Moïse's assassination. 

Moϊse was killed at his private residence overlooking the capital on July 7, 2021. 

He was reportedly shot 12 times and had bullet wounds to his forehead and several to his torso. 

His left eye had been gouged out and bones in his arm and in his ankle had reportedly been broken. 

His wife, Martine Moϊse, was also shot in the incident but survived.

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