Photo Credit: EPA
The widow of Haiti’s late President Jovenel Moïse — who was assassinated in his home in 2021 — was among more than 50 people indicted by a Haitian judge in connection to his murder.
Martine Moïse, who was shot and wounded in the July home invasion, was named in a 122-page report issued by Judge Walther Wesser Voltaire and is accused of complicity and criminal association.
Haiti’s former secretary general of the National Palace, Lyonel Valbrun, reportedly told officials that Martine Moïse laid out plans to succeed her husband just two days after his assassination, Judge Voltaire wrote in the indictment.
Valbrun said Martine Moïse called and allegedly said: “Jovenel didn’t do anything for us. You have to open the office. The president told Ti Klod [aka ex-prime minister Claude Joseph] to create a council of ministers; he will hold elections in three months so I can become president, now we will have power.”
Valbrun reportedly told officials that he was under “strong pressure” from Martine Moïse to place the president’s office at the disposal of Joseph as he needed to “organize a council of ministers,” Judge Voltaire wrote in the indictment.
The former first lady also had numerous inconsistencies in her account of what happened the night her husband, 53, was killed, including that she hid under their bed when the intruders entered, according to the document.
But investigators at the scene claimed not “even a giant rat…whose size measures between 35 and 45 centimeters” would be able to squeeze under the bed.
Voltaire said Martine Moïse’s statements about the attack were “so tainted with contradictions that they leave something to be desired and discredit her.”
She also raised suspicion when she removed “a bunch of things” from the National Palace late at night, between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m., two days before the president was killed, Valbrun said.
