By Sarah Marsh
HAVANA (Reuters) — Haitian
Prime Minister, Ariel Henry on
Tuesday replaced the chief public
prosecutor who had been
seeking charges against him as
a suspect in the assassination of
President Jovenel Moise, plunging
the country into a fresh
political crisis.
Moise was shot dead https://
www.reuters.com/world/
americas/haitian-presidentshot
dead-home-overnightpm
2021-07-07 on July 7 when
assassins stormed his private
residence in the hills above
Port-au-Prince. The 53-year old
had been governing by decree
for more than a year after Haiti
failed to hold legislative and
municipal elections amid a
political gridlock and had faced
many calls to step down.
His death has left Haiti in an
even deeper constitutional and
political crisis as it has only
a handful of elected officials
nationwide.
Henry, a political moderate
and neurosurgeon whom Moise
named prime minister just days
before his death in an attempt
to reduce political tensions, has
sought to forge a new consensus
between different political
factions.
But allegations over his possible
involvement in Moise’s
killing are now overshadowing
that.
Prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude
said last week that phone
records showed Henry had
twice communicated with a
man believed to be the mastermind
behind Moise’s killing on
the night of the crime.
That suspect, a former justice
ministry official whom
Henry has publicly defended, is
now on the run.
Henry dismissed his request
to discuss the matter as politicking
and did not respond to
the allegations.
That prompted Claude to
write on Tuesday to the judge
overseeing the investigation
into Moise’s slaying and ask him
to charge Henry as a suspect.
He also wrote to Haitian
migration services ordering
them not to let the prime minister
leave the country “due to
serious presumption relative to
Caribbean Life, S 24 EPTEMBER 17-23, 2021
the assassination of the president,”
Later on Tuesday, a letter
from Henry to Claude dated
Sept. 13 emerged in which he
said he was firing him for “grave
administrative error,” without
going into detail. In a separate
letter dated Sept. 14, he named
Frantz Louis Juste to the post.
It remains unclear whether
the order actually is valid as
Haiti’s 1987 constitution mandates
that the prosecutor can
only be appointed or fired by
the president, a position that
remains vacant.
SEEKING POLITICAL
STABILITY
Decades of political instability
as well as natural catastrophes
have plagued Haiti’s
development. Its aid-dependent
economy is the poorest in the
Americas, more than a third of
Haitians face acute food insecurity
https://www.reuters.com/
world/americas/haitis-hungercrisis
bites-deeper-after-devastating
quake-2021-08-30, and
gangs https://www.reuters.com/
world/americas/haiti-gangleader
Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry attends the signing ceremony
of the “Political Agreement for a peaceful and effective
governance of the interim period” with the opposition
in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Sept. 11, 2021. REUTERS/Ralph Tedy Erol/
File
launches-revolutionviolence
escalates-2021-06-24
have turned swathes of the capital
into no go areas.
Claude had invited Henry on
Friday to meet with him to discuss
the phone calls with the
suspect, noting that he could
only summon the premier on
presidential orders, but the
country was without a president.
Haiti’s Office of Citizen Protection
demanded on Saturday
Henry step down and hand
himself over to the justice system.
Henry retorted on Twitter
that “no distraction, invitation,
summons, maneuver, menace
or rearguard action” would distract
him from his work.
Haiti PM fires prosecutor seeking charges
against him in president’s killing
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