The prosecution used testimony by Martine Moïse about the language she heard on the night her husband was killed to support its claim that the assassination was carried out by a hired Colombian hit squad.
Reporting from Miami
March 11, 2026
The gunmen who assassinated Haiti’s president, Jovenel Moïse, in July 2021, spoke Spanish and killed him as he lay face up on the floor, a federal jury heard on Wednesday.
Mr. Moïse’s widow, Martine Moïse, 51, resumed testifying on the second day of the U.S. trial of four men accused of plotting her husband’s murder and hiring a Colombian hit team to carry it out. Ms. Moïse’s testimony is expected to be critical to placing the Colombians at the scene.
Picking up her story at the moment of execution, Ms. Moïse said she had watched, already wounded herself by several gunshots, as one of the gunmen stood over the president and unleashed the final hail of bullets. She saw his body quiver. “He made a sound like an ‘Oh,’” she said.
“Right then I closed my eyes, because I realized no one was coming to my rescue,” she added, speaking in Haitian Creole with the help of an interpreter.
An autopsy found that Mr. Moïse died instantly, struck by 12 bullets.
Ms. Moïse said she didn’t open her eyes again, even as one of the men grabbed her by the leg and flipped her over, then flashed a light across her face, presumably checking if she was still alive.
Blood trickled out of her mouth, she said, from one bullet wound that doctors said almost grazed her lungs.