Defendant in Haiti president's killing is in custody in Canada awaiting extradition

One of the newly indicted defendants in the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse is in custody in Canada, where he is being held pending extradition to the United States.

Ashkard Pierre, who once worked in the Haitian consulate in Montreal, was arrested over the weekend as part of the sweeping expansion of the United States prosecution stemming from the assassination.

A federal grand jury returned a sixth superseding indictment on Aug. 27, charging Pierre and 25 other named defendants while leaving the identities of four others under seal. The previous indictment had named just five defendants, four of whom were convicted earlier this year of conspiracy to kidnap or kill Moïse, who was shot to death inside his house in the middle of the night on July 7, 2021.

While many of the newly charged defendants are in U.S. custody in Miami, where parts of the plot were hatched, Pierre remains in Canada following his arrest over the weekend by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in collaboration with the FBI in Montreal.

The French-language digital news media outlet La Presse reported Wednesday that court documents filed in Montreal showed that Canadian police had been monitoring Pierre for weeks and had placed his home under surveillance.

Aide to Sanon

Pierre was an aide to Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a Haitian-American pastor prosecutors say wanted to replace Moïse as president and found support among the owners of a Doral-based Security firms and a Weston financier. The security companies, Counter Terrorist Unit and its affiliate, Counter Terrorist Unit Federal Academy, collectively known as CTU, recruited former soldiers of Colombia’s military as contractors. Financing, prosecutors say in the new indictment, came from a patchwork of sources that included fraudulently obtained COVID-19 pandemic relief funds and government-backed loans.

As Sanon’s aide, Pierre helped facilitate the Colombians’ travel to Port-au-Prince via the Dominican Republic. Prosecutors say that after the assassination Pierre sought help from notorious Haitian gang leaders Vitel’homme Innocent to shelter one of the Colombian suspects, Mario Palacios Palacios, who had fled after the killing.

According to the court records reviewed by La Presse, Pierre returned to Quebec from the United States two months after the assassination. Haitian authorities had issued an arrest warrant, but he remained at large.

Pierre has since appeared twice in court in Montreal. His first appearance came on Sunday, the same day FBI and Homeland Security Investigations agents escorted 17 Colombian former soldiers and a former Haiti government official aboard a U.S. military flight from Port-au-Prince to Miami.

While those defendants appeared in a Miami federal court on Monday Pierre appeared before Quebec Superior Court Judge Annie Émond. He did not have a lawyer, La Presse reported, and his case was adjourned until Oct. 2.

The arrests and transfers came just days before Sanon is scheduled to go on trial in Miami before U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Becerra. They have triggered a fury of last-minute defense motions challenging the government’s dramatic expansion of the case.

Sanon’s lawyers say that although the grand jury returned the new indictment on Aug. 27, their client was not notified until Monday, 25 days later and just seven days before jury selection is set to begin. They have spent two years preparing to go to trial on the previous indictment, they argue in court documents, and unless he is permitted to proceed under the previous version, his trial should be postponed for at least 30 days.

Sanon is facing several charges, the main one being conspiring to kidnap or kill a person outside the United States. He also is accused of carrying out a military expedition and illegally shipping bullet-proof vests to Haiti.

His lawyers are asking the judge to dismiss five of the charges against him, arguing that prosecutors have substantially rewritten those counts after the five-year statute of limitations expired.

The new indictment, the defense said, did more than just add 29 new defendants. It also added 77 paragraphs of general allegations into existing charges, and in one conspiracy count, added allegations involving financing, travel and arming of the Colombian contingent and the convoy that went to Moïse’s residence on the night he was killed. Sanon was not present at the house, according to testimony.

Separately, the lawyers are asking that the judge force prosecutors to turn over statements, investigative reports and other evidence involving Pierre and the others who are newly charged.

The expansion of the allegations just weeks before trial and the delay in his arraignment, Sanon’s lawyers argue, deprive him of adequate notice and time to prepare.

Prosecutors oppose Sanon delay

In a response opposing defense lawyers’ request, prosecutors once more laid out their allegations against Sanon.

“Sanon recruited and gathered the group of conspirators who ultimately arranged President Moïse’s assassination,” prosecutors say in the new indictment. “Sanon enlisted those individuals to provide material support to the conspiracy to kidnap or kill President Moïse, and Sanon himself provided material support.”

Prosecutors say this included a variety of services including his own participation in the scheme; fundraising, mostly from recipients of pandemic-era government loans; arranging travel to Haiti and lodging for himself and supporters and two dozen Colombians.

Prosecutors note that while Sanon requests a 30-day continuance of his trial if he’s forced to go on trial on the new indictment, he is charged with the same crimes, in both versions.

“His trial on the newest indictment will not differ, in any material way, from the trial that he would receive on the previous one,” the prosecutors said.

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