Beautiful Virgin Islands

Wednesday, Dec 10, 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 Officials Push Back at Trump Saying European Leaders ‘Talk Too Much’ About Ukraine
UK Warns of Escalating Cyber Assault Linked to Putin’s State-Backed Operations
UK Consumer Spending Falters in November as Households Hold Back Ahead of Budget
UK Orders Fresh Review of Prince Harry’s Security Status After Formal Request
U.S. Authorises Nvidia to Sell H200 AI Chips to China Under Security Controls
Trump in Direct Assault: European Leaders Are Weak, Immigration a Disaster. Russia Is Strong and Big — and Will Win
"App recommendation" or disguised advertisement? ChatGPT Premium users are furious
"The Great Filtering": Australia Blocks Hundreds of Thousands of Minors From Social Networks
Mark Zuckerberg Pulls Back From Metaverse After $70 Billion Loss as Meta Shifts Priorities to AI
Nvidia CEO Says U.S. Data-Center Builds Take Years while China ‘Builds a Hospital in a Weekend’
Indian Airports in Turmoil as IndiGo Cancels Over a Thousand Flights, Stranding Thousands
Hollywood Industry on Edge as Netflix Secures Near-$60 Bln Loan for Warner Bros Takeover
Drugs and Assassinations: The Connection Between the Italian Mafia and Football Ultras
Hollywood megadeal: Netflix acquires Warner Bros. Discovery for 83 billion dollars
The Disregard for a Europe ‘in Danger of Erasure,’ the Shift Toward Russia: Trump’s Strategic Policy Document
Two and a Half Weeks After the Major Outage: A Cloudflare Malfunction Brings Down Multiple Sites
UK data-regulator demands urgent clarity on racial bias in police facial-recognition systems
Labour Uses Biscuits to Explain UK Debt — MPs Lean Into Social Media to Reach New Audiences
German President Lays Wreath at Coventry as UK-Germany Reaffirm Unity Against Russia’s Threat
UK Inquiry Finds Putin ‘Morally Responsible’ for 2018 Novichok Death — London Imposes Broad Sanctions on GRU
India backs down on plan to mandate government “Sanchar Saathi” app on all smartphones
King Charles Welcomes German President Steinmeier to UK in First State Visit by Berlin in 27 Years
UK Plans Major Cutback to Jury Trials as Crown Court Backlog Nears 80,000
UK Government to Significantly Limit Jury Trials in England and Wales
U.S. and U.K. Seal Drug-Pricing Deal: Britain Agrees to Pay More, U.S. Lifts Tariffs
UK Postpones Decision Yet Again on China’s Proposed Mega-Embassy in London
Head of UK Budget Watchdog Resigns After Premature Leak of Reeves’ Budget Report
Car-sharing giant Zipcar to exit UK market by end of 2025
Reports of Widespread Drone Deployment Raise Privacy and Security Questions in the UK
UK Signals Security Concerns Over China While Pursuing Stronger Trade Links
Google warns of AI “irrationality” just as Gemini 3 launch rattles markets
Top Consultancies Freeze Starting Salaries as AI Threatens ‘Pyramid’ Model
Macron Says Washington Pressuring EU to Delay Enforcement of Digital-Regulation Probes Against Meta, TikTok and X
UK’s DragonFire Laser Downs High-Speed Drones as £316m Deal Speeds Naval Deployment
UK Chancellor Rejects Claims She Misled Public on Fiscal Outlook Ahead of Budget
Starmer Defends Autumn Budget as Finance Chief Faces Accusations of Misleading Public Finances
EU Firms Struggle with 3,000-Hour Paperwork Load — While Automakers Fear De Facto 2030 Petrol Car Ban
White House launches ‘Hall of Shame’ site to publicly condemn media outlets for alleged bias
UK Budget’s New EV Mileage Tax Undercuts Case for Plug-In Hybrids
UK Government Launches National Inquiry into ‘Grooming Gangs’ After US Warning and Rising Public Outcry
Taylor Swift Extends U.K. Chart Reign as ‘The Fate of Ophelia’ Hits Six Weeks at No. 1
250 Still Missing in the Massive Fire, 94 Killed. One Day After the Disaster: Survivor Rescued on the 16th Floor
Trump: National Guard Soldier Who Was Shot in Washington Has Died; Second Soldier Fighting for His Life
UK Chancellor Reeves Defends Tax Rises as Essential to Reduce Child Poverty and Stabilise Public Finances
No Evidence Found for Claim That UK Schools Are Shifting to Teaching American English
European Powers Urge Israel to Halt West Bank Settler Violence Amid Surge in Attacks
"I Would Have Given Her a Kidney": She Lent Bezos’s Ex-Wife $1,000 — and Received Millions in Return
European States Approve First-ever Military-Grade Surveillance Network via ESA
UK to Slash Key Pension Tax Perk, Targeting High Earners Under New Budget
UK Government Announces £150 Annual Cut to Household Energy Bills Through Levy Reforms
×