MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Haiti PM dismisses prosecutor investigating him for President Moïse's assassination

“No maneuver, no threat, no rear-guard combat, no aggression will distract me from my mission,” Henry said

Haiti's Prime Minister Ariel Henry Tuesday dismissed Prosecutor Bel-Ford Claude, who hours earlier had requested to open an investigation into the murder of President Jovenel Moïse which involved the current head of government.

Henry conveyed his decision in a letter dated Monday but released Tuesday. Claude's removal from office was gounded on an alleged “serious administrative offense.”

Claude had asked a Port-au-Prince Court on Tuesday to investigate Henry as a defendant in the July 7 massacre and also requested measures to ban Henry from leaving the country.

The prosecutor's suspicions were sparked by two telephone conversations Henry had with one of the main suspects in the assassination, Joseph Felix Badio, three hours after the crime.

According to Claude the geolocation data of the calls, provided by the telephone company, placed Badio at Moïse's residence at the time he contacted Henry. Last week, Claude invited Henry to clear up the controversial calls.

The judicial procedings are currently under the jurisdiction of the investigating judge Garry Orélien, so any summons to witnesses or defendants are up to him and not the prosecutor.

Henry disqualified the prosecutor's summons last Saturday, during the signing ceremony of a political agreement, and Tuesday announced nothing would distract his will, not even “threats of all kinds” or “physical attacks.”

“No distraction, no summons or invitation, no maneuver, no threat, no rear-guard combat, no aggression will distract me from my mission,” Henry said last Saturday.

Haitian authorities have placed 44 people in pretrial detention for their alleged involvement in the assassination, including 18 Colombian mercenaries accused of being part of the commando group that murdered Moïse, which also included 12 members of the president's security corps, who did not react to the attack.