U.S arraigns ex-Colombian military officer fingered in Haitian President’s murder
United States authorities have arraigned Mario Palacios, a Colombian in a court for his alleged involvement in the assassination of Haitian President, Jovenel Moise, who was killed in his bedroom in July 2021.
Palacios, a former Colombian military officer, was extradited to the US from Panama on Tuesday, and arraigned in a court at Southern District of Florida on Wednesday.
The US Department of Justice said in a statement on Wednesday thus:
“The three countries (Panama, Colombia, and United States) were in constant contact coordinating this deportation and the last extradition to the United States yesterday,” said the director general of the National Police of Colombia, Gen. Jorge Luis Vargas Valencia.”
Palacios was one of the few suspects that managed to escape from the country after Moise’s assassination, eventually ending up in Jamaica, where he was captured by authorities for entering the country illegally.
The arraignment makes him the first person allegedly involved in the brazen assassination of the late former president to be formally charged with a crime.
Speaking to ‘The Week’ from an undetermined location prior to his arrest and arraignment, Palacios had denied killing the former president but said he witnessed it.
‘I don’t know who killed him. I say it from the heart for my family,’ Palacios had told the outlet.
However, Palacios, who had earlier admitted that he was in Haiti at the time of the attack, allegedly evaded capture by escaping Haiti by boat to Jamaica in October.
