The widow of Haiti’s slain president Jovenel Moise returned home on Saturday after being treated in Florida, US for wounds she suffered in the attack, an official said.
Martine Moise, 47, with her right arm in a sling and wearing a bulletproof vest, was received at Port-au-Prince airport by interim prime minister Claude Joseph, secretary of state for communications Frantz Exantus wrote on Twitter.
‘The first lady… has just arrived in Haiti to take part in preparations for the state funeral’ of her late husband, Exantus wrote, posting pictures of Martine Moise disembarking from a private plane accompanied by multiple security agents.
She spent 10 days in hospital in Miami, Florida, where she had been airlifted after her husband was gunned down in their home in the early hours of July 7.
The state funeral services are set to take place on July 23 in Cap-Haitien, a historic city in the north of Haiti.
The day before Moise’s widow’s return, Joseph had pledged justice would be served for the president’s assassination.
Police chief Leon Charles told a press conference Friday that Haitian authorities were ‘working with international agencies specialized in judicial investigations, such as the FBI (US Federal Bureau of Investigations), Interpol and other bodies that are on the ground to analyze all the evidence… to trace the masterminds of the assassination.’
Moise, 53, was assassinated by a hit squad made up mostly of Colombian mercenaries, but many of the details surrounding the brazen attack remain a mystery.
Colombia’s police chief Jorge Vargas has said that a former Haitian justice ministry official, Joseph Felix Badio, gave two of the Colombian mercenaries the order to kill the president. But it is not clear if Badio in turn was following orders from someone else.
Badio, a former official in an anti-corruption unit within the justice ministry, is one of several people wanted by Haitian police, alongside former opposition senator Joel John Joseph.
Both are described on their wanted posters as ‘armed and dangerous.’
So far, a unit of assassins comprised of 26 Colombians and two Haitian-Americans have been arrested in connection with the killing. A Florida doctor, Christian Emmanuel Sanon was also arrested last week for his role in the assassination of Haiti president after he had campaigned to replace him in a letter to U.S. State Department
Haitian police have accused a 63-year-old Haitian doctor with strong ties to Florida, Christian Emmanuel Sanon, of being a mastermind of the plot and having ‘political objectives.’
Joseph said 24 police officers attached to Moise’s security detail were ordered to report for questioning.
On Thursday, the first lady thanked ‘the team of guardian angels who helped me through this terrible time.
‘With your gentle touch, kindness, and care, I was able to hold on. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!’
