Two men believed to be Haitian Americans — one of them purportedly a former bodyguard at the Canadian Embassy in Port-au-Prince — have been arrested in connection with the assassination of Haiti’s president, a senior Haitian official said Thursday. Mathias Pierre, Haiti’s minister of elections, said the four others are from Colombia. Seven other suspected assailants were killed in a gun battle with police, according to Léon Charles, Haiti’s director of national police. The U.S. State Department said it was aware of reports that Haitian Americans were in custody but could not confirm or comment. Robert Fatton, a Haitian politics expert at the University of Virginia, said gangs were a force to contend with and that it wasn’t certain Haiti’s security forces could enforce a state of siege.

Source: Los Angeles Times July 08, 2021 19:19 UTC