Moments before he was assassinated, Haitian President Jovenel Moïse reportedly made a desperate call to the national police commissioner – yelling, “They are shooting by the house! Mobilize people!”
But Moïse was gunned down and his wife, Martine, seriously wounded in their Port-au-Prince home during a July 7 raid authorities say involved Haitians, Haitian-Americans and former Colombian soldiers.
The president was shot in the forehead, chest, hip and stomach, and his left eye was gouged, according to Haitian Judge Charles Henry Destin, who documented the bloody crime scene, according to the Miami Herald.
In a detailed account of the brazen attack, the Herald reported that the assault followed 10 minutes of frantic pleas by the 53-year-old leader as the assailants stormed the presidential compound.
“Where are you?” Moïse said in a separate call to a tactically trained police officer, according to the newspaper.
“I need your assistance, now! My life is in danger! Come quick! Come save my life!” he said, referring to the officer by name after he answered, “Mr. President.”
The cop, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Herald that he then heard the sound of an assault rifle and ordered his fellow officers to jump into their three vehicles and head to Pelerin 5, the neighborhood where Moïse lived with his wife and two kids.
“We need to leave now,” he reportedly told them.
Authorities have so far detained 18 Colombians and two Haitian Americans, while three Colombians were killed and five are still on the lam.
Dr. Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a South Florida-based Haitian physician, and James Solages, a Haitian American who allegedly coordinated with Miami-based Venezuelan company CTU Security in the plot, have both been arrested.
Antonio Intriago, a Venezuelan man who owns a Florida company CTU Security has been named as a person of interest.
Two dozen security agents have also been sanctioned and five high-ranking members of the president’s security team were relieved of administrative duties in the aftermath of the assassination.
Several people who received calls from inside Moïse’s home shortly before he was killed described his final moments to the Herald and the McClatchy Washington Bureau on condition of anonymity.
“They came inside, went straight to the room and kept talking to someone on the phone to identify the president,” the officer who received the president’s call told the news outlet.
“They turned the house upside down,” he said.
When the gunman described the president’s profile to the other person on the line, “he turned to face the president and shot him without any conversation,” the officer added, according to the outlet.
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