A retired Colombian army officer who had participated in the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse was sentenced to life in prison by a US federal court in Miami in October 2023, representing the most significant accountability measure yet delivered in the assassination case. The sentence was the result of a guilty plea to murder-related charges and reflected the US prosecution’s success in building a case through evidence gathered across multiple jurisdictions.
The life sentence for one of the assassination’s direct perpetrators provided some measure of justice for Moïse’s family and for Haiti, even as the broader network of alleged organizers and financiers behind the assassination remained at various stages of investigation and prosecution in both the United States and Haiti. The US federal prosecution was far advanced compared to the Haitian judicial proceedings, which had been plagued by judge withdrawals, witness intimidation, and the general dysfunction of the Haitian justice system.
In December 2023, another former Colombian soldier, Mario Antonio Palacios Palacios, pleaded guilty to conspiring in the assassination, adding to the list of direct perpetrators who had accepted legal accountability in US courts. The progression of US judicial proceedings stood in stark contrast to the slow pace of accountability in Haiti itself.
Moïse’s family expressed satisfaction at the US sentences while calling for accountability to extend to those who had allegedly organized and financed the assassination — figures whose prosecution remained more complicated both legally and politically. The families of other victims and Haitian civil society organizations continued to push for a comprehensive accounting that would extend beyond the hired killers to those who had ordered and paid for the crime.