Mystery grows around suspect in Haiti president killing

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – A physician. A church pastor. A failed Florida businessman who filed for bankruptcy.

New details about a suspect in the killing of Haiti's president deepened the mystery over the assassination that shocked this nation of more than 11 million people.

Authorities identified the suspect as Christian Emmanuel Sanon, 62, a Haitian who expressed a desire to lead his country in a YouTube video. He is unknown in Haitian political circles, and associates suggested he was duped by those behind the slaying of President Jovenel Moïse in an attack last week that critically wounded his wife, Martine.

A Florida friend of Sanon told The Associated Press the suspect is an evangelical Christian pastor and a licensed physician in Haiti but not in the USA. The associate, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of safety concerns, said Sanon told him he was approached by people claiming to represent the U.S. State and Justice Departments who wanted to install him as president.

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He said the plan was for Moïse to be arrested, and Sanon would not have participated if he knew Moïse would be killed.

"I guarantee you that," the associate said. "This was supposed to be a mission to save Haiti from hell, with support from the U.S. government."

The Rev. Larry Caldwell in Florida said he worked with Sanon setting up churches and medical clinics in Haiti in 2000-2010. He said he doesn't believe Sanon would have been involved in violence.

"I know the character of the man," Caldwell said. "You take a man like that, and you're then going to say he participated in a brutal crime of murder, knowing that being associated with that would send him to the pits of hell? ... If there was one man who would be willing to stand in the breach to help his country, it would be Christian."

Haiti's national police chief, Léon Charles, accused Sanon of working with those who plotted the assassination.

Charles said officers found a hat with the logo of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, 20 boxes of bullets, gun parts, four license plates from the Dominican Republic, two cars and correspondence, among other things, in Sanon's house in Haiti.

More: Haiti’s interim leader requests US troops

Colombia fills in details on suspects

Twenty-six former Colombian soldiers are suspected in the killing, and 23 have been arrested, along with three Haitians. Charles said five suspects are at large and at least three have been killed.

Colombia's national police chief, Gen. Jorge Luis Vargas, said a Florida-based enterprise, CTU Security, used its company credit card to buy 19 plane tickets from Bogota to Santo Domingo for Colombian suspects. Most arrived in the Dominican Republic in June and moved into Haiti within weeks, Vargas said.

More: Gangs complicate Haiti effort to recover from assassination

He said Dimitri Hérard, head of general security at Haiti's National Palace, flew to Colombia, Ecuador and Panama in the months before the assassination, and Colombian police are investigating whether he had any role in recruiting the mercenaries. In Haiti, prosecutors seek to interrogate Hérard as part of the assassination investigation.

Charles said that Sanon was in contact with CTU Security and that the company recruited the suspects in the killing. He said Sanon flew into Haiti in June on a private jet accompanied by several of the alleged gunmen.

The suspects were told their job was to protect Sanon, and they were ordered to arrest the president, Charles said.

Charles said that after Moïse was killed, one suspect called Sanon, who got in touch with two people believed to be masterminds of the plot. He did not identify them or say whether police know who they are.

Sanon's associate said he attended a meeting in Florida with Sanon and about a dozen other people, including Antonio Enmanuel Intriago Valera, a Venezuelan émigré to Miami who runs CTU Security. He said a presentation was made for rebuilding Haiti, including its water system, converting trash into energy and fixing roads.

He said Sanon asked why the security team accompanying him to Haiti was all Colombian. Sanon was told that Haitians couldn't be trusted and that the system is corrupt, the associate said. He said Sanon called him from Haiti a few days before the assassination and said the Colombians had disappeared.

"I'm all by myself. Who are these people? I don't know what they are doing," the associate quoted Sanon as saying.

Sanon "is completely gullible," the associate said. "He thinks God is going to save everything."

Sanon has lived in Kansas City, Missouri, and in Florida, where he filed for bankruptcy in 2013 and identified himself as a medical doctor in a YouTube video titled "Leadership for Haiti" in which he denounced the country's leaders as corrupt and accused them of stripping the country's resources.

Records show Sanon has never been licensed to practice medicine or any other occupation covered by Florida's Department of Health.

Sanon said in court papers filed in his bankruptcy case that he was a physician and a pastor at the Tabarre Evangelical Tabernacle in Haiti. He said he had stakes in enterprises including the Organization of Rome Haiti, which he identified as a nongovernmental group, a radio station in Haiti and medical facilities in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

At the time of his bankruptcy, he and his wife reported income of $5,000 per month and a home in Brandon, Florida, valued at about $143,000, with a mortgage of more than $367,000. A federal bankruptcy trustee determined they hid ownership of about 35 acres in Haiti from creditors.

Florida records show Sanon started about a dozen businesses over the past 20 years, all of which failed, including ones related to medical imaging, physical therapy, fossil fuel trading, real estate and veganism.

US delegation in Haiti

Politicians challenge interim President Claude Joseph, who is backed by the Haitian police and the military.

U.S. officials, including representatives from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security, met Sunday with Joseph, designated Prime Minister Ariel Henry and Joseph Lambert, the head of Haiti's dismantled Senate, whom supporters named as provisional president in a challenge to Joseph, according to the White House National Security Council.

The delegation met with Haiti's national police and reviewed the security of critical infrastructure, the council said.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the delegation received a request for additional assistance. She said deployment of U.S. troops remained "under review" but suggested Haiti's political uncertainty was a complicating factor.

"What was clear from their trip is that there is a lack of clarity about the future of political leadership," Psaki said.

President Joe Biden said he was closely following developments: "The people of Haiti deserve peace and security, and Haiti's political leaders need to come together for the good of their country."

U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said Haiti's request for security assistance is being examined.

The United Nations has been involved in Haiti on and off since 1990, but the last U.N. military peacekeepers left the country in 2017.

Fox reported from Washington, Spencer reported from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Contributing: Manuel Rueda in Bogotá, Colombia, and Evens Sanon in Port-au-Prince

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Haiti assassination mystery grows around suspect Christian Sanon