Courts release several prisoners in the assassination of Jovenel Moïse

These releases mark some of the first outcomes to follow the order from the investigating judge, issued on January 25, 2024

Several individuals acquitted by the investigating judge in his order on Jovenel Moïse’s assassination have just been released by the Haitian justiciary this Monday, March 4, 2024, according to an exclusive obtained by AyiboPost from a source involved in the case.

These releases, among the first outcomes to follow the order from judge Walter Wesser Voltaire, come on the heels of the spectacular attack on several prisons in the metropolitan area over the weekend.

Six of the eight individuals released by the investigating judge were in Haiti’s largest prison before the escape of several thousand prisoners on Saturday evening.

Raynaldo Corvington, as well as his stepson, Dominick Cauvin, was in the prison, but had not escaped.

Corvington was denounced for his participation in a meeting with several other individuals charged in the case, at the request of his legal advisor, Joseph Félix Badio.

During this meeting, according to the magistrate, a “bunch of grandiose development projects” as well as the existence of around 30 arrest warrants issued against people from various backgrounds for corruption, money laundering, illicit trafficking of narcotics and organs, were mentioned.

According to the judge’s order first made public by AyiboPost on February 19, 2024, the meeting held at Corvington’s home was only an “informational meeting and not the planning of any conspiracy whatsoever.”

Raynaldo Corvington, as well as his stepson, Dominick Cauvin, was in the prison center, but had not escaped.

His son-in-law, Dominick Cauvin, was also arrested while following the vehicle of the central directorate of the judicial police in which his father-in-law was taken, on the afternoon of July 13, 2021.

Cauvin and Corvington are now free, confirms their attorney, Samuel Madistin, in a note relayed to AyiboPost. “They were unjustly accused and were released after 2 years, 7 months and 12 days of arbitrary and unjust detention,” continues the legal representative. “They have returned to their families and do not wish to make any statements to the press,” he added.

The judge’s order implicates around 50 people, including former first lady Martine Moïse as well as ex-executives such as the former police director, Léon Charles, for their alleged involvement in the assassination of Jovenel Moïse, killed in his bedroom on July 7, 2021.

According to a source, several of the prisoners in this case have already received the judge’s order, as required by law, well before the attack sustained by the national penitentiary on March 2, 2024. The document was also served to the former first lady Martine Moïse, former prime minister Claude Joseph and the former head of the National Agency for Protected Areas (ANAP) Jeantel Joseph.

The AyiboPost editorial staff cannot confirm the existence of any notice of appeal from the government commissioner to challenge the order.

Presented by opponents as a gift of justice to current Prime Minister Ariel Henry, the order does not demonstrate how the most high-profile crime in the country’s recent history was financed or clearly identify the intellectual authors and their motivations.

The judge highlights a group of people close to Jovenel Moïse, thirsty for power, who allegedly planned and carried out his assassination.

The Prime Minister, presented as a friend of Badio, with whom he spoke to on the phone several times on the heels of the assassination – according to several reports – was cleared by the judge.