Haiti Holds at Least 1 American in Assassination

Crowds surround police station demanding to burn the suspects
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 8, 2021 3:38 PM CDT
Haiti Holds at Least 1 American in Assassination
A police truck takes two detainees Thursday to the police station of Petion Ville in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The police chief said the two are suspects in the assassination.   (AP Photo/Joseph Odelyn)

The six people arrested in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse include at least one American, a government official said Thursday. James Solages is a US citizen of Haitian descent, the Washington Post reports, and an official said he believes another detainee is, as well. Solages' LinkedIn page says he works at a senior home in Florida as a plant operation director and is chairman of an educational charity in Haiti. Another official said the detainees are foreigners. Police have not released any information linking them to the assassination, but Mathias Pierre, the elections minister, said they're being held at a Port-au-Prince police station. "The special units are trying to protect the police station, because the population is very mad and is trying to get to them, to burn them," Pierre said. "We're trying to avoid that."

Some Haitians have taken it upon themselves to locate suspects, per the New York Times. Five vehicles thought to have been used in the plot have been recovered, but three of them were burned by crowds before police could collect evidence from them, the nation's police chief said. "We can't have vigilante justice," Léon Charles appealed to the public. "Let us do our work." Police had the bodies of three of the four suspects who have been killed, he said, calling them "visibly foreigners." Officers had two buildings surrounded where other suspects had fled, a UN official said. "I'm asking everyone to go to their homes," said the interim prime minister, Claude Joseph, on Thursday at a news conference. "The police have the situation under control." Martial law has been declared in the nation, per NPR. (More Haiti stories.)

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