The president of Colombia, Abelardo de la Espriella, has ordered this Tuesday the ministries of Defense and Justice to provide "legal assistance" to the 17 former Colombian military personnel accused of their alleged participation in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, carried out on July 7, 2021, and who have been detained in the United States since mid-September.
"I have given the instruction to the ministers of Defense (General Jorge Mora) and Justice (Iván Cancino) to provide legal assistance to the military detained in the United States for their alleged participation in the assassination of the president of Haiti, as well as economic support to their families," he announced on his social media.
The head of state has questioned the degree of involvement of the former military personnel in the assassination and has demanded clarification of the facts. "The just cannot pay for the sins of the guilty. I want to know exactly what happened and that the individual responsibility of each one is clarified," he pointed out, in a message in which he assured that the detained Colombians will not be "alone: they will have support to exercise their defense and for this entire situation to be clarified."
On September 20, the transfer from Haiti to the United States of 18 people linked to the assassination of Moïse took place. However, the U.S. Prosecutor's Office raises the number of formal accused in the North American country to 30, as part of an ongoing process to identify both the material authors and those who financed, facilitated, or supported the operation.
The investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice concludes that the plot was articulated between Haiti, Colombia, and U.S. territory. In this context, 22 former members of the Colombian Army, along with other implicated Haitians and Americans, would have been recruited.
Moïse was shot dead inside his residence in Port-au-Prince, while his wife, Martine Moïse, was seriously injured. In May 2026, a federal jury in Miami found four defendants guilty of crimes related to the conspiracy to assassinate or kidnap the Haitian president.