Leaked Audio Confession Blows Lid Off Mystery of Haiti’s Murdered President
Let’s say that you’re a foreign mercenary. And that you and some of your best buds, who are also foreign mercenaries, have just shot to death the leader of an island nation, the inhabitants of which are now likely to be more than a little vexed with you. And let’s further say that there’s an escape plan already set up that would see you out of the dead president’s home and safely on your way.
What do you think you would do next?
Well, if you were one of the Colombian mercenaries who killed Haitian President Jovenel Moïse back in July, you’d apparently choose to push back on the get-away plans so as to stick around and ransack the home looking for loot.
That was just one of many jaw-dropping details revealed during some 15 hours of audio-taped confessions reportedly given by the Colombian mercs to Haitian officials which were, in turn, leaked to Colombian media giant Caracol in late August. In fact, the testimony given by the former soldiers, many of whom had been trained by the U.S., may have solved the riddle of who funded and masterminded the plot against Moïse.
In a follow-up piece by La Semana, another major print and web presence in Colombia, the confessions were confirmed as having been recorded “before the authorities in Haiti.” Subsequently, dozens of media hubs in Latin America ran stories about the Colombians’ tragic misadventures.
“Before the operation [the Colombian mercenaries] had been informed that Moïse had between 18 and 45 million dollars in his house,” Caracol reported. “There were three tasks: the first was to [kill] the president, the second was to take the entire camera system, and the third was to find the suitcases of money,” said retired Colombian army captain Germán Rivera, who is referred to as “Mike” during the audio sessions.
After the assassination, and about a half-hour of searching, Mike and his crew of 26 Colombians and two Haitian American commandos had dismantled the cameras and found “two suitcases and three boxes apparently loaded with bills,” according to Caracol.
The stolen money, say Mike and his men, was intended to compensate both themselves and the Miami-based security firm for which they worked. That company is called CTU, and it has steadfastly denied it was behind the coup, instead blaming Moïse’s own security detail.
But the imprisoned Colombians are clear about who they believe had hired them, and why, even going so far as to allege that CTU had worked with a Haitian named Joseph Felix Badio to help orchestrate the putsch.
Badio and four more allegedly complicit Haitians were allegedly supposed to watch the Colombians’ backs during the operation and assist with their escape plan, which was to race toward the Presidential Palace for the swearing-in of the new president.
Yet when Mike’s team emerged from Moïse’s house, they said they found Badio was gone and the cops were already waiting up the street with armored vehicles.
“[Badio] arrived with us, and the next moment he left with the [other accomplices], he left us alone. They were in a gray Ford,” says Franco Castañeda in the leaked confession.
“The Colombians were duped,” says Mike Vigil, a former U.S. government official who served in Haiti and the Caribbean. “Badio used the mercenaries as fall guys to distance himself from the killing.”
An arrest warrant for “murder and armed robbery” against Moïse was issued in mid-July for Badio, a former member of the Haitian government’s anti-corruption unit. At the time, a high-ranking Haitian official told CNN that, “The intellectual masterminds are bigger than [Badio]. Who financed the operation is still the big question mark.”
But Vigil said that big question might have just been answered by the Colombians’ declarations. “It looks like there wasn’t another mastermind needed to fund this operation,” Vigil said.
In an interview published on Aug. 22 with the Colombian media outlet La Semana, an unnamed mercenary still on the lam and hiding out in Haiti further elaborated on how he and his comrades had been used as patsies:
“[CTU and Badio] deceived all of us who came from Colombia. We were deceived. We were lured like children with sweets, happy because it was a good job offer and because the pay was good too. They were going to pay us $2,700 then. It was a job offer. We did not come as mercenaries to kill anyone.”
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