Haiti PM Replaces Prosecutor Who Named Him in Moise Murder Probe

(Bloomberg) -- A Haitian prosecutor was removed from his post hours after he asked a judge to indict Prime Minister Ariel Henry in connection with the July 7 murder of President Jovenel Moise. 

In a tweet on Tuesday, the Prime Minister’s office said Port-au-Prince Chief Prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude had been replaced. 

While no reason was given for the “dismissal,” the move is likely to deepen tensions in the troubled Caribbean nation that’s been seized by violence and is still trying to recover from a deadly Aug. 14 earthquake. 

Earlier in the day, Claude had asked that Henry be barred from leaving the country and indicted, citing phone calls Henry allegedly had with one of the murder suspects. 

According to a copy of the document obtained by Bloomberg News, Henry allegedly spoke with Joseph Felix Badio for at least seven minutes the night of Moise’s murder. The report also says those phone calls had been geo-located to the vicinity of Hotel Montana -- close to the home where Moise was assassinated. 

Badio, a former Minister of Justice employee, has been in hiding since an arrest warrant was issued for him in July.

In all, more than 40 people have been detained in connection with the crime, but Henry has repeatedly said that the true masterminds are still at large. 

Over the weekend, he wrote a series of tweets accusing unnamed forces of using “diversionary maneuvers to confuse and prevent justice.”

“The real culprits, the intellectual authors and the sponsors of the odious assassination of President Jovenel Moise,” he wrote, “will be identified, handed over to justice and punished for their crime.”

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