Beautiful Virgin Islands

Thursday, Oct 30, 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
UK and Vietnam Sign Landmark Migration Deal to Fast-Track Returns of Irregular Arrivals
UK Drug-Pricing Overhaul Essential for Life-Sciences Ambition, Says GSK Chief
Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie Temporarily Leave the UK Amid Their Parents’ Royal Fallout
UK Weighs Early End to Oil and Gas Windfall Tax as Reeves Seeks Investment Commitments
UK Retail Inflation Slows as Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since Spring
Next Raises Full-Year Profit Guidance After Strong Third-Quarter Performance
Reform UK’s Lee Anderson Admits to 'Gaming' Benefits System While Advocating Crackdown
United States and South Korea Conclude Major Trade Accord Worth $350 Billion
Hurricane Melissa Strikes Cuba After Devastating Jamaica With Record Winds
Vice President Vance to Headline Turning Point USA Campus Event at Ole Miss
U.S. Targets Maritime Narco-Routes While Border Pressure to Mexico Remains Limited
Bill Gates at 70: “I Have a Real Fear of Artificial Intelligence – and Also Regret”
Elon Musk Unveils Grokipedia: An AI-Driven Alternative to Wikipedia
Saudi Arabia Unveils Vision for First-Ever "Sky Stadium" Suspended Over Desert Floor
Amazon Announces 14 000 Corporate Job Cuts as AI Investment Accelerates
UK Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since March, Food Leads the Decline
London Stock Exchange Group ADR (LNSTY) Earns Zacks Rank #1 Upgrade on Rising Earnings Outlook
Soap legend Tony Adams, long-time star of Crossroads, dies at 84
Rachel Reeves Signals Tax Increases Ahead of November Budget Amid £20-50 Billion Fiscal Gap
NatWest Past Gains of 314% Spotlight Opportunity — But Some Key Risks Remain
UK Launches ‘Golden Age’ of Nuclear with £38 Billion Sizewell C Approval
UK Announces £1.08 Billion Budget for Offshore Wind Auction to Boost 2030 Capacity
UK Seeks Steel Alliance with EU and US to Counter China’s Over-Capacity
UK Struggles to Balance China as Both Strategic Threat and Valued Trading Partner
Argentina’s Markets Surge as Milei’s Party Secures Major Win
British Journalist Sami Hamdi Detained by U.S. Authorities After Visa Revocation Amid Israel-Gaza Commentary
King Charles Unveils UK’s First LGBT+ Armed Forces Memorial at National Memorial Arboretum
At ninety-two and re-elected: Paul Biya secures eighth term in Cameroon amid unrest
Racist Incidents Against UK Nurses Surge by 55%
UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves Cites Shared Concerns With Trump Administration as Foundation for Early US-UK Trade Deal
Essentra plc: A Closer Look at a UK ‘Penny Stock’ Opportunity Amid Market Weakness
U.S. and China Near Deal to Avert Rare-Earth Export Controls Ahead of Trump-Xi Summit
Justin time: Justin Herbert Shields Madison Beer with Impressive Reflex at Lakers Game
Russia’s President Putin Declares Burevestnik Nuclear Cruise Missile Ready for Deployment
Giuffre’s Memoir Alleges Maxwell Claimed Sexual Act with Clooney
House Republicans Move to Strip NYC Mayoral Front-Runner Zohran Mamdani of U.S. Citizenship
Record-High Spoiled Ballots Signal Voter Discontent in Ireland’s 2025 Presidential Election
Philippines’ Taal Volcano Erupts Overnight with 2.4 km Ash Plume
Albania’s Virtual AI 'Minister' Diella Set to 'Birth' Eighty-Three Digital Assistants for MPs
Tesla Unveils Vision for Optimus V3 as ‘Biggest Product of All Time’, Including Surgical Capabilities
Francis Ford Coppola Auctions Luxury Watches After Self-Financed Film Flop
Convicted Sex Offender Mistakenly Freed by UK Prison Service Arrested in London
United States and China Begin Constructive Trade Negotiations Ahead of Trump–Xi Summit
U.S. Treasury Sanctions Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro over Drug-Trafficking Allegations
Miss USA Crowns Nebraska’s Audrey Eckert Amid Leadership Overhaul
‘I Am Not Done’: Kamala Harris Signals Possible 2028 White House Run
NBA Faces Integrity Crisis After Mass Arrests in Gambling Scandal
Swift Heist at the Louvre Sees Eight French Crown Jewels Stolen in Under Seven Minutes
U.S. Halts Trade Talks with Canada After Ontario Ad Using Reagan Voice Triggers Diplomatic Fallout
Microsoft AI CEO: ‘We’re making an AI that you can trust your kids to use’ — but can Microsoft rebuild its own trust before fixing the industry’s?
×