Colombian ex-soldiers deny killing Haitian president

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PORT-AU-PRINCE – The former Colombian soldiers imprisoned in Haiti in the assassination of President Jovenel Moise say they did not kill him and believed they were on a US Drug Enforcement Administration mission to arrest the leader and lawyers from the Colombian state, who spoke to the men, said Friday.

“They said they don’t know what happened,” said Luis Andres Fajardo, the number two at the Colombian human rights agency. He spoke with most of the 18 men for about three hours in a Haitian prison. Many remember the saying, “It was a trap.”

The ex-soldiers, former special operations soldiers who fought militias in Colombia, were hired by a security firm in Miami and arrived here between May and June, according to relatives, text messages, and Haitians who interacted with them. Police here say the owner of the company and a group of Haitian businessmen were involved in a plan to assassinate Mr. Moyes.

At meetings with lawyers, in which soldiers first gave details of their version of the Colombian government, the former soldiers repeated the same phrase over and over: “We were deceived.”

However, some of the men did not speak and spoke little, preferring to spend time writing letters for Mr. Fajardo’s delegation to return to their relatives in Colombia. Mr Fajardo said the men were tightly handcuffed 24 hours a day for more than a week, and half were handcuffed to each other.

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