Ex-Colombian soldier pleads guilty to role in plot to kill Haiti’s President Moïse

A former Colombian soldier who attended a strategic meeting just before the assassination of Haiti’s president and joined in the deadly assault pleaded guilty Friday, making him the fifth of 11 defendants in the FBI’s case to accept responsibility and assist U.S. authorities.

Mario Antonio Palacios Palacios, 45, had fled to Jamaica more than two months after the July 7, 2021 assassination and became the first suspect to surrender to FBI agents in January of last year after initially confessing to FBI agents at a Kingston hotel — a confession that he and his lawyers later claimed was given under duress. But Palacios chose to accept responsibility for his supporting role in the murder conspiracy targeting Haitian President Jovenel Moïse before a judge could rule on his bid to throw out the confession.

According to the FBI, Palacios admitted during a nearly six-hour video-recorded interview with federal agents in October 2021 that he took a necklace, two watches, $2,060 cash and other personal items belonging to Moïse, and his wife, Martine, when he was killed and she was injured in the assault at their hillside home outside Port-au-Prince.

At Friday’s hearing, Palacios pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material support to kill Haiti’s president, providing that support himself, and conspiring to kill a person outside the United States. He faces up to a life sentence before U.S. District Judge Jose Martinez on March 1.

However, unlike four other defendants who have pleaded guilty so far, Palacios played a “minor role,” federal prosecutors Andrea Goldbarg and Monica Castro said, because he was not involved in making strategic decisions about the assassination plot. That factor, along with his cooperation, might help him ultimately receive less than a life sentence in the future.

Citing a factual statement filed with his plea agreement, Goldbarg said Palacios retired from the Colombian military in June 2021 and was recruited by a Miami-area security company, CTU, to provide protection for an aspiring politician who wanted to replace Moïse as Haiti’s president.

Goldbarg said Palacios was recruited along with more than 20 former Colombian soldiers by CTU and met with its president Antonio Intriago in Haiti in the weeks before the assassination plot was carried out. Intriago, who is being held at a federal lockup, has pleaded not guilty to the conspiracy and other charges in the high-profile case.

Goldbarg said that initially Palacios understood that the goal was to capture Haiti’s president and arrest him. Palacios and the other Colombians conducted training sessions while CTU provided them with security equipment, including armored vests.

Palacios was led in the mission by a retired Colombian army officer, Germán Alejandro Rivera Garcia, aka “Colonel Mike,” who pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges and was sentenced to life in prison this fall.

Goldbarg described Palacios as a “line security soldier” who took orders from Rivera and other Colombian commando leaders, noting that Palacios “did not have the authority to make decisions nor did he take part in planning of any operation.”

Citing the factual statement, she said the day before the assassination, Palacios “was informed that the Colombian contractors would be conducting an operation at the presidential residence. Before the beginning of the operation, the defendant was also told that the president was going to die.”

She said the Colombian commandos took money and jewelry from the president’s home, and that Palacios kept some of the cash and jewels.

In the aftermath of the assault, three Colombians died during a shootout with Haitian national police outside the president’s residence.

At Friday’s hearing, Martinez, the judge, asked Palacios if the facts read by the prosecutor were true.

“Yes, your honor,” he said.

After the hearing, his defense attorney, Alfredo Izaguirre, stressed to reporters that Palacios had a minor role in the operation — though he was at the president’s residence during the deadly assault. Had Palacios not been informed of the plot to kill the president just before the raid, he added, “we’d probably be going to trial” instead of cutting a plea deal.

Izaguirre said he plans to ask the judge to give Palacios less than a life sentence.

“He wasn’t part of the plan” to kill Moïse, he said. “When he left Colombia, he didn’t know what he was going to get into.”

MADE IN MIAMI: Read the Miami Herald investigation into the assassination of Jovenal Moïse

The U.S. government’s prosecution of the 11 original defendants has moved quickly with successive plea deals and sentencings.

This week, a former senator in Haiti’s parliament was sentenced to life in prison after he had previously pleaded guilty to conspiring to kill his country’s leader — but at a court hearing the ex-politician told a federal judge that his intention was only to arrest Moïse, not assassinate him. The former senator, Joseph Joël John, 52, who also is known as John Joël Joseph to his countrymen, was the third defendant to be given the maximum sentence by Martinez in the Haiti assassination case.

John was also present at meetings in Haiti where the operation to kill the country’s leader was discussed, including one gathering at the home of a Haitian businessman the day before the assassination. Among those attending that critical meeting: Rodolphe Jaar, who hosted the gathering; Rivera, the Colombian commando leader; James Solages, a Haitian American; Joseph Vincent, a Haitian American who previously worked as an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration; and Palacios, the ex-Colombian soldier.

Earlier this month, Vincent, 58, pleaded guilty to the murder conspiracy and related charges and now faces life in prison.

Rivera, 45, aka “Colonel Mike,” admitted that he met with several co-conspirators from Haiti and South Florida before leading a group of former Colombian soldiers to the Haitian president’s home to kill him. He was sentenced in October to life in prison.

Jaar, 51, admitted to providing weapons, lodging and money in the conspiracy to assassinate Haiti’s president. A dual Haitian and Chilean citizen, Jaar was sentenced in June to life in prison. Previously, he was also convicted of drug trafficking in the United States.

Meanwhile, the Haiti national police have continued a parallel probe, which has resulted in the arrests of about 40 suspects — but no one has been formally charged in Haiti with the president’s assassination. According to sources familiar with Haiti’s probe, investigators are particularly interested in Palacios because he spent more than two months hiding in Haiti after Moïse’s death, before he fled to Jamaica.

Haiti investigators, frustrated by the lack of assistance from the FBI, have had no access to Palacios since he surrendered to U.S. authorities. He was part of the first group of deployed Colombian commandos tasked with accessing the president’s bedroom on the night of the assault.

Haiti authorities have expressed a keen interest in finding out who helped Palacios hide in Haiti and travel to Jamaica. To get there, Palacios had to go through gang-controlled territory at the southern edge of Port-au-Prince to the southern region of Haiti, where he then took a boat to Jamaica along a well-known drug trafficking route.

Miami Herald Caribbean correspondent Jacqueline Charles contributed to this story.