Pentagon: Colombians Implicated In Haitian President’s Assassination Were Trained By U.S. Military

The plot to assassinate Haitian president Jovenel Moise is becoming more clear. The New York Times is reporting that Colombian officials identified a former Haitian intelligence official as the man behind the murder:

The ex-intelligence official, Joseph Felix Badio, had first told two Colombian soldiers that they would be “arresting” the president, Gen. Jorge Luis Vargas, the head of Colombia’s national police, said at a news conference.

But a few days before the operation, he said, the plan changed. Mr. Badio told the former soldiers, Duberney Capador and Germán Alejandro Rivera Garcia, that “what they had to do was assassinate the president of Haiti,” General Vargas said.

This comes after we learned that former Colombian commandos arrested in connection with the assassination once received training by the U.S. military. The Washington Post first reported it and received confirmation from the Pentagon.  It comes a week after the stunning murder, one that ABC News reports has plunged the impoverished nation into chaos.

The exact type of training was not revealed, but the statement did confirm that some of the men currently in custody in Haiti took part in training overseen by American personnel.

“A review of our training databases indicates that a small number of the Colombian individuals detained as part of this investigation had participated in past U.S. military training and education programs, while serving as active members of the Colombian Military Forces.”

At least 13 of the 15 soldiers in custody once served in Colombia’s army. That Colombian soldiers receive training from U.S. forces is not unusual. Both countries have partnered for military purposes for decades, often to combat the drug cartels.

But this revelation raises more questions about Moise’s assassination, and what role, if any, the former Colombian soldiers played. And it was not the only new detail to come to light Thursday regarding the assassination that has a U.S. connection.

Antonio “Tony” Intriago, owner of Miami-based CTU Security, was accused by the head of Haiti’s National Police of taking part in the assassination plot, according to The Associated Press. That official did not offer evidence to back up those claims.

And the AP’s story cites one source that thinks Intriago simply didn’t do research the job he hired the Colombians to do:

A Miami security professional believes Intriago was too eager to take the job and did not push to learn details, leaving his contractors in the lurch. Some of their family members back in Colombia have said the men understood the mission was to provide protection for VIPs.  

Colombian President Ivan Duque supported the theory that some of the Colombian contractors thought they were there to act as bodyguards during a radio interview.

“There was a big group that were taken on a supposed protection mission, but within that group, there’s a smaller group, which were those who apparently had detailed knowledge of what was to be a criminal operation.”

The New York Times is also digging through the murky details of how the Colombian contractors wound up in Haiti. It began with outreach from some businessmen based in the United States.

Here’s just part of the story:

The Colombian government is conducting its own investigation to learn what role its citizens may have played in the assassination. The Times reports officials have not been able to talk with the contractors yet, relying on second-hand details provided by Haitian authorities. But the focus of the Colombian investigation appears focused on Germán Alejandro Rivera, a retired captain, who is likely to have been a primary contact for the U.S.-based recruiters who made first contact with the former Colombian soldiers.