Martine Moïse, the widow of Haiti’s last democratically elected president, Jovenel Moïse, recounted the harrowing night of his assassination during her testimony in a U.S. federal court on Wednesday. She described being shot and injured during the 2021 attack that claimed her husband’s life, as four men face conspiracy charges in connection with the case.
Returning to the witness stand in Miami, Martine Moïse continued her testimony after an initial hour-long session the previous day. Her account followed the opening statements by the attorneys on Tuesday, marking her as the prosecution’s first witness.
Jovenel Moïse was brutally killed on July 7, 2021, in a pre-dawn raid by a group of approximately two dozen foreign mercenaries, predominantly Colombians, who stormed his residence on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, according to officials.
Facing charges in the Miami federal court are Arcangel Pretel Ortiz, Antonio Intriago, Walter Veintemilla, and James Solages. They are accused of conspiring in South Florida to either kidnap or assassinate Haiti’s former president.
The assassination of Jovenel Moïse plunged Haiti into chaos, exacerbating the power struggle and violence among increasingly aggressive gang factions in the nation.
In her testimony on Wednesday, Martine Moïse, assisted by a Creole interpreter, recounted how she went to bed around 10 p.m. on the eve of the attack. She awoke three hours later to the terrifying sound of gunfire and turned to her husband beside her to understand the unfolding chaos.
âHoney, we are dead,â Jovenel Moïse said, according to his wife’s testimony.
Martine Moïse said gunfire continued as she crawled downstairs to check on her two adult children.
She said she then returned to her and her husband’s bedroom, where she and Jovenel Moïse got on the floor on either side of the bed and used it as protection from gunfire.
Men eventually burst into the room and opened fire with what sounded like an automatic weapon, Martine Moïse said. She was struck several times.
She said she heard men speaking in Spanish before someone shot Jovenel Moïse multiple times, killing him.
After the attackers cleared out, Martine Moïse said she expected to find the dead bodies of the 30 to 50 security officers assigned to protect the house, but there were none.
She said she later learned that they were paid to leave their posts.
Moïse was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment and then flown to a Miami hospital for surgery. She testified that her right arm remains disabled and she still has pain.
Defense attorneys asked if Moïse was aware that she was under investigation in Haiti in connection to her husband’s death.
She said the people behind her husband’s killing are now in power and that she has fled the country for her own safety.
She said she has offered to answer questions remotely, but that the people who killed her husband want her to return to Haiti so they can also kill her.
Moïse was previously indicted in the case, but the charge was later annulled.
The defense also asked Moïse about inconsistencies between her testimony and earlier interviews with the FBI. She insisted that her current statements were correct and couldn’t explain discrepancies in FBI reports.
Attorneys for the four men on trial have argued that the investigation initiated in Haiti was a mess and that their clients were manipulated into taking the blame for an internal coup.
According to prosecutors, South Florida was a central location for planning and financing the plot to oust Moïse and replace him with someone the conspirators chose.
All four defendants face possible life sentences and have pleaded not guilty.
Ortiz and Intriago were principals of Counter Terrorist Unit Federal Academy and Counter Terrorist Unit Security, collectively known as CTU, and Veintemilla was a principal of Worldwide Capital Lending Group. Both companies were based in South Florida.
Solages was a CTU representative in Haiti who investigators say coordinated with others, including Christian Sanon, a dual Haitian-US citizen whom the conspirators initially favored to replace Moïse.
Defense attorneys have said the group was working with FBI agents, US Embassy officials and members of the Haitian government in what they believed was the lawful arrest of a criminal president.
The defense has pointed to Joseph Félix Badio, a former Haitian government worker who was arrested in Haiti in 2023, as the mastermind behind a plan to use the president’s arrest to assassinate Moïse.
US District Judge Jacqueline Becerra has blocked out more than two months for the trial.
Five others previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in the US and are serving life sentences. A sixth person was sentenced to nine years behind bars after pleading guilty to providing body armor to the conspirators. Sanon’s trial will be scheduled later.
Seventeen Colombian soldiers and three Haitian officials face charges in Haiti. Gang violence, death threats and a crumbling judicial system have stalled the investigation.
