Haitian assassins wanted to install Florida resident as new president

As regular readers of these pages know, Crazy America very rarely ventures into the realm of politics.

Nonetheless, there are sometimes stories that demand attention from us: they are both “crazy” and also connected to “America”.

Until this week, the extraordinary story of the assassination of Haiti’s President Jovenel Moise was not one that touched directly on us here in this country.

But that has now changed.

The emerging details of what happened last week are barely believable. Certainly, they would be rejected as too far-fetched by a book publisher if someone submitted them as the plot for a novel.

Now, a prominent Haitian doctor with longstanding ties to South Florida has been implicated in last week’s shocking killing of Moise.

Christian Emmanuel Sanon, who has lived in the Sunshine State on and off for more than 20 years, is suspected of being one of the ringleaders of the hit squad that killed Moise, according to a report in the Miami Herald.

Sanon is the third person of Haitian descent tied to Florida to be seized, the Herald said.

Two of them — James Solages, 35, and Joseph Vincent, 55 — told authorities during questioning that the assassination was part of a plot to install Sanon as president of the Caribbean nation, sources told the outlet.

They said the plan wasn’t to kill Moise, but rather serve him with a 2019 arrest warrant and take him to the presidential palace, where Sanon would take his place.

In an interview Saturday, Haiti National Police Chief Leon Charles told the Herald that the plot included “two Haitian Americans and a high-profile doctor there,” but did not identify Sanon by name.

“I would say that the Haitian (doctor) recruited” the men, who in turn signed up a group of Colombian nationals for the operations, the report said.

In all, 26 people pulled off the attack, with 19 now in custody and the others killed during a police raid in response to the assassination.

Moise, 53, was gunned down in an attack on his home by a group of armed men who claimed to be agents from the US Drug Enforcement Administration.

Haitian first lady Martine Moise, 47, was critically wounded in the attack.

Officials described the killers as well-trained “foreign mercenaries,” with the assassination throwing the politically fragile nation into further instability.