Haiti President Assassination: Businessman Sentenced To Life in Prison For Helping Mastermind Jovenel Moïse Assassination Plot
The assassination of late Haiti President Jovenel Moïse Plunged Haiti into anarchy. Now, one of the men who masterminded , Rodolphe Jaar, a Haitian-Chilean businessman, has been sentenced to life imprisonment.
According to the Miami Herald, Jaar is the first among nearly a dozen defendants to be sentenced for the late Haiti president's assassination. However, he was not sentenced in Haiti, which is in total chaos right now, but in the United States.
Jaar previously pleaded guilty to three counts of conspiring to provide material support, providing material support, and conspiring to kidnap and kill then-President Jovenel Moïse. Under his plea agreement, he faced between 30 years to life imprisonment.
With Jaar's sentencing, it is still unclear how the other defendants charged with the Moïse assassination would take plea deals. It was pointed out that they might not take a plea deal if they were still going to end up with life imprisonment.
How Rodolphe Jaar Was Involved in the Jovenel Moïse Assassination Plot
Jaar was among the 11 people tied to the assassination plot who were arrested in the Dominican Republic, which borders Haiti, before getting extradited to the United States. So far, he is the only one to plead guilty.
Court documents stated that he only provided personnel and funds to kidnap Moïse. However, he did not expect that what he was helping with would become an assassination plot that would become successful but led to the country's descent into a political and socio-economic crisis.
READ MORE : Haiti Gang Burns Courthouse
The money he provided was used to purchase weapons and bribe members of the president's security detail. He then met with the other conspirators, not just in Haiti but also in Florida, to kidnap the president.
According to the Associated Press, before he became a prominent businessman in Haiti, Jaar, who has dual Haitian and Chilean citizenship, was once convicted because of drug trafficking. He was also once an informant for the US government about drug trafficking activities in the Americas,
Haiti's Descent Into Chaos After Jovenel Moïse Assassination
While it was poor, Haiti was still stable when Jovenel Moïse was still president. His assassination was seen as the catalyst for the country to plunge into a massive crisis, with officials begging the UN to send peacekeeping forces.
After the Haiti president's assassination, the country was in a political crisis as Moïse had no clear successor, with many rejecting the authority of Prime Minister Ariel Henry. With the political turmoil, violent street gangs turned their local conflicts national, overwhelming police as they invaded territories.
The UN estimates that gangs now control over 60% of the capital, Port-au-Prince, with residents now becoming vigilantes as they try to stave off these Haiti gangs from invading their communities. On top of that, there is also a cholera outbreak going on.
The Guardian reported that the violence raging between the street gangs, the largely overwhelmed police, and the vigilante citizens are prevalent.
The Ecuadorian diplomat María Isabel Salvador described the situation to the UN Security last March, saying, "Faced with these increasingly violent armed gangs vying for control of neighborhoods of the capital, with limited or no police presence, some residents have begun to take matters into their own hands."
This article is owned by Latin Post.
Written by: Rick Martin
WATCH: Haitian businessman gets life sentence in 2021 assassination of Haiti's president - CBS Miami
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