PORT-AU-PRINCE, Sept 20 (Reuters) - A military plane whisked 18 suspects in the 2021 killing of Haitian President Jovenel Moises out of Haiti and flew them to the United States on Sunday, according to Jason Reding Quiñones, the U.S. District Attorney for the Southern District of Florida.
"Today marks the next major phase in our pursuit of accountability for the assassination," Quiñones said in a statement posted on social media.
In May, four South Florida men were convicted of plotting to kill the Haitian president by hiring mercenaries to assassinate him at his Port-au-Prince home.
Prosecutors argued during the nine-week trial in a Miami federal court that the men assembled two dozen former Colombian soldiers and supplied them with money, guns, ammunition and tactical vests in a conspiracy to kill Moise.
The 53-year-old president was shot dead in July 2021 at his private residence in the hills above Port-au-Prince, a killing that left a gaping political vacuum in the Caribbean nation and emboldened powerful gangs.
The killing has prompted multiple investigations and indictments in Haiti and the United States, while giving rise to competing theories over who ordered the assassination and why.
On Sunday, Quiñones said that 30 people had been indicted in connection to the crime.
In Haiti, prominent human rights activist Pierre Espérance, said that the transfer of the 18 suspects to the U.S. was a "disgrace for the Haitian justice system."
The executive director of the National Human Rights Defense Network, Espérance also called for an overhaul of the judicial system to allow such complicated cases to be tried inside Haiti.
(Reporting by Harold Isaac in Port-au-Prince, writing by Laura Gottesdiener; Editing by Nick Zieminski)
