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Call to charge Haitian PM over president’s killing

Haiti’s chief prosecutor has asked a judge to charge Prime Minister Ariel Henry in the slaying of the president and asked officials to bar him from leaving the country.

The order filed by Port-au-Prince prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude on Tuesday (local time) came on the same day that he had requested Mr Henry meet with him and explain why a key suspect in the assassination of President Jovenel Moise called him twice just hours after the killing.

“There are enough compromising elements… to prosecute Henry and ask for his outright indictment,” Mr Claude wrote in the order.

A spokesman for Mr Henry could not immediately be reached for comment.

Mr Claude said the calls were made at 4.03am and 4.20am on July 7, adding that evidence shows the suspect, Joseph Badio, was in the vicinity of Mr Moise’s home at that time.

Mr Moise was shot dead by killers posing as American drug enforcement officers at his home early on July 7.

Mr Badio once worked for Haiti’s Ministry of Justice and at the government’s anti-corruption unit until he was fired in May amid accusations of violating unspecified ethical rules.

In the two-page document, Mr Claude said the calls lasted a total of seven minutes and that Mr Henry was at the Hotel Montana in Port-au-Prince at that time.

He also noted that a government official tweeted last month that Mr Henry told him he never spoke with Mr Badio.

On Monday, Justice Minister Rockfeller Vincent ordered the chief of Haiti’s National Police to boost security for Mr Claude because the prosecutor had received “important and disturbing” threats in the past five days.

-AAP

Topics: Haiti
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