Beautiful Virgin Islands

Monday, Oct 06, 2025

South Florida man was involved in President Moïse’s assassination, Haiti official says

South Florida man was involved in President Moïse’s assassination, Haiti official says

Two South Florida men have been arrested in connection with the assassination of Haiti President Jovenel Moïse, the Miami Herald has learned.
James Solages, of Fort Lauderdale, was identified as one of the assailants by Mathias Pierre, a minister in charge of Haitian elections. Pierre did not say if Solages is a U.S. citizen or a permanent U.S. resident.

In an undated video interview in Creole, Solages, who lived in Fort Lauderdale and is from Jacmel in southeast Haiti, called himself a philanthropist and child advocate who was involved in helping school children from the area where he grew up.

A second man arrested in the assassination has been identified as Joseph Vincent, from the Miami area. He’s of Haitian descent and about 56 years old, according to a source familiar with the ongoing investigation. Pierre said he could not confirm the name of the second suspect because the investigation is ongoing.

Earlier in the day, a crowd in the neighborhood of Petion-Ville, near where the president was killed, captured two foreigners presumed to be involved in the assassination of Moïse, Haiti’s national police chief said.

A video shared on social media shows a crowd pulling two men, one of whom was shirtless and was tied with a rope.

“Advance, advance!” someone is heard yelling on the video as the crowd pushes the two men.

The crowd took the two men to the police station in the neighborhood of Petion-Ville. Leon Charles, interim national police director, speaking to Radio Metropole in front of the police station, said the two men are among those they suspect killed the president Wednesday morning. The police director did not explain how the crowd knew the two men were involved in the assassination.

Charles said police killed seven of the assailants during a firefight Wednesday and have arrested six other people suspected of being involved in the assassination.

A large crowd had gathered outside of the police station demanding that the police turned over the suspects.

Police are continuing the search for more suspects, but he did not provide the nationality of any of those in custody. But he said there are both black and white suspects as well as foreigners.

What’s important, he said, is “to find out how they did this.”

While the search for suspects continues, the makeup of the leadership of the country remained in question Thursday.

Claude Joseph, the prime minister who recently resigned his post, said he is in charge and has declared martial law throughout the country. But Ariel Henry, a politician and neurosurgeon who was newly appointed last week by Moïse to be prime minister, claims he’s in charge, even though he has not been sworn in.

The Biden administration said Thursday that it recognizes Joseph as Haiti’s acting prime minister.

“Our support is for Haiti’s democratic institutions and people,” one senior administration official said. “While we recognize acting prime minister Claude Joseph, we continue to make clear the urgent need for a dialogue and elections.”

A second official confirmed that Joseph is viewed as the acting head of state.

The officials affirmed that the United States also supports elections in Haiti “later this year.”

But White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki did not go as far in supporting Joseph during a press briefing Thursday afternoon.

“It is our view and we continue to call for elections to happen this year and we believe they should proceed. We know that free and fair elections will facilitate a peaceful transition of power to a newly elected president and we certainly continue to support Haiti’s democratic institutions,” she said.

“We will call on all political parties, civil society and stakeholders to work together in the wake of the tragedy and echo the acting prime minister’s call for calm. We recognize the democratic institutions of Haiti, and we are going to continue to work with them directly, but we have been calling for elections this year and we support those proceeding.”

Not everyone in Haiti supports the view that Joseph is the legitimate leader of Haiti. On Thursday, members of the country’s civil society and opposition political parties gathered at a hotel in Petion-Ville to come up with a political accord in hopes of ending the confusion and conflict over who is in charge.

Magalie Comeau Denis, a former minister of culture and coordinator of a recently formed Commission to Find a Haitian Solution to the ongoing political crisis, said Joseph cannot be the legitimate prime minister because he had already resigned. She congratulated the person she said is the new prime minister, Henry.

Joseph “was formally fired by a presidential decree,” Denis said. “And the government in question is not his. ... The intentions of the de facto president was to give the job to someone else.”

Joseph, she added, was a foreign minister acting as an interim after the resignation of former Prime Minister Joseph Jouthe.

Denis said civil society gathered Thursday to reach a political accord to designate who will take charge of the transition, “because we have to get out of this division of Ariel Henry, Claude Joseph that’s putting the country in an unnecessary conflict.”

While Denis envisioned a third person, some in attendance were hoping to gather support behind Henry in hopes of having more say-so in how Haiti will be governed in the coming months.

Henry told the Miami Herald that he’s confirming that “I am not the acting. I am the prime minister.”

The Biden administration, he added, is misinformed. “The information they have is inaccurate,” he said.

There is a third politician vying for the job: Joseph Lambert, the current head of the only constitutional institution in the country, the Senate, which has been reduced to 10 members.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
×