Miami Herald
Ernst Dorfeuille, a Haitian police officer dressed in plain clothes, was walking out of Big Star Market in the hills of Port-au-Prince last Thursday when he took a quick glance at the man walking in and realized who he was: Joseph Félix Badio, the former government functionary and a key suspect wanted in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. It was the second time that Dorfeuille had run into the fugitive, by this time sporting a gray beard and salt and pepper hair, inside a Pétionville market. But unlike their previous run-in at the now-closed Giant Supermarket further down the road, this time he was determined not to let him get away.
In a move reminiscent of a Sherlock Holmes novel, the cop went to his car, sat behind the wheel and called Haiti National Police Commissioner Mackenzie Jacques. He requested backup. Jacques, who was put in charge of the hillside suburb in February, arrived at the market and dispatched a small cadre of officers in unmarked police vehicles. Hiding out of of view, they waited.
Moments later, an unsuspecting Badio, dressed in a black jacket and blue-and-white checked shirt, emerged toting a small shopping bag. Walking across the parking lot, he slipped behind the wheel of a small black Chevrolet SUV and proceeded to pull out of the lot. A white police pickup followed by a gray Toyota SUV crossed in front and blocked the Chevrolet’s path. Heavily armed Haitian police officers quickly converged and began shouting as they moved in. The driver’s-side door slowly opened. With his hands raised, Badio stepped out, defiantly yelling, in Creole, “What’s going on?” As police moved in to make the arrest, he screamed, “Kidnapping! Kidnapping!”
Shoppers, perhaps thinking it was a politician or lawyer being abducted by men impersonating the law, reported a kidnapping in progress. Hearing the call over the police radio, Dorfeuille interjected, “Standby.” And then, over the radio, came: “We’ve just arrested Joseph Félix Badio.” The spectacular arrest 27 months after a group of 22 Colombian soldiers stormed the president’s private residence in the middle of the night on July 7, 2021, and riddled him with a dozen high-caliber bullets — while injuring his wife, Martine Moïse — has pumped life into a seemingly dormant investigation in Haiti. Despite more than 40 arrests, including three Haitian Americans who were eventually transferred to Miami earlier this year, no one in Haiti has been formally charged in the probe, now on its fifth investigative judge.
For now, Badio is being held and questioned in Haiti, but he may eventually be transferred to Miami, where there is a parallel investigation, as the 12th defendant in the FBI’s assassination case. On Tuesday, Haitian Judge Walther Wesser Voltaire began interrogating him and ordered his transfer to Haiti’s National Penitentiary. On Wednesday, FBI investigators also met with Badio and questioned him. READ MORE: Who was involved in killing of Haiti president Jovenel Moise? This week, two of the 11 people charged in Miami with plotting or supporting the president’s killing — former Colombian soldiers Mario Antonio Palacios Palacios and squad leader German Alejandro Rivera Garcia, aka “Col. Mike”— will appear separately in federal court. Palacios’ attorneys are trying to get a confession that their client made to FBI agents about the plot thrown out.
Rivera, who was part of the convoy that went to Moïse’s residence, pleaded guilty last month to conspiracy and supporting a plot to kill Moïse. The plea was entered after he too was transferred from a Haitian prison. He faces up to life in prison at his sentencing Friday. Even before his arrest, Badio was cited by several jailed suspects as playing a central role in coordination of the plot. At this stage, it is unclear whether Badio, who had been under surveillance, will remain in custody in Haiti or be transferred to Miami for prosecution in the FBI-led case.
A Haiti National Police “wanted” notice, dated July 12, 2021, accuses Badio of assassination, attempted assassination and armed robbery. According to an exhaustive Haitian investigative police report first obtained by the Miami Herald, he was in contact with a number of suspects on the night of the president’s killing. Police have also accused him of being inside Moïse’s home on the night he was killed. Badio, who worked in the police anti-corruption unit before being fired two months before the assassination, has long been seen as either a key person behind the scenes or a potential mastermind — accusations he has rejected in voice recordings while on the run.
While many are hoping his arrest will provide an investigative breakthrough, there is fear that someone will kill him to silence him if he stays in Haiti too long. ‘HE WAS SOMEONE EVERYONE WAS LOOKING FOR’ Big Star Market is located about a quarter mile north of the Pétionville police substation. Jacques, the police commissioner, said that when he received the call from Dorfeuille, there was no hesitation about what needed to be done. “He was someone everyone was looking for,” Jacques said. Having previously run a specialized SWAT-like unit inside the Haiti National Police, Jacques gathered a few comrades and instructed them to take up positions.
For those who have questioned the Haiti National Police’s commitment to fighting crime, he said, “it’s the only institution we have to fight insecurity, that is holding everything together to make sure that gangs don’t completely take over the country.” Still, the arrest of Badio has raised questions about how he had remained free for so long.
A police source confirmed that the vehicle he was driving belonged to Marie Patricia Jean-Gilles. An employee in the justice ministry, according to two other sources, she is described as Badio’s live-in girlfriend who often attended church with him. Jean-Gilles’ connection to both the ministry, which is overseeing the still unsolved assassination investigation, and to Badio would help explain how he was able to evade capture for so long. On Sunday, police arrested five people who went to visit the house in Fort Jacques where Badio resided. They included Andre Junior Cherisier, who described himself as a journalist but a source told the Herald is a close confidant of the former government official, and three lawyers. The lawyers’ arrest was confirmed by the head of the bar in the city of Mirebalais, Joël Lubin. Speaking on local Radio Magik 9, Lubin said the lawyers “were at the client’s residence to collect certain personal belongings.”
Hérold Jean Francois, a local journalist and director of Radio Ibo in Port-au-Prince, was among those inside the Big Star Market on the day of the arrest. Badio, he said, is not someone he knows or recognizes and when he stepped outside and was told about the arrest, he asked, “Badio who?” “The country is too easy,” Francis later told the Miami Herald. “The man was circulating among us every day and carrying on with his life as if he were a regular person. What is even more astounding in this case is that it was a lone police officer working as if he were Sherlock Holmes, aiming his flashlight in the dark.”
Francois said has since learned that Badio was a frequent shopper at the grocery store, but his physical transformation — the gray Afro and beard — would have rendered him unrecognizable, even to the suspect’s brother.
After the arrest, rumors quickly circulated that police, who by now had transferred the suspect to the judicial police, had arrested the wrong man. But individuals like Dorfeuille, who has known Badio for years and worked with him in public security, had no doubt who was in police handcuffs. In fact, according to sources, when Dorfeuille first came across Badio it was during the COVID-19 epidemic and the suspect was wearing a mask as he was picking through the fruits and lettuce inside Giant Supermarket, also in Pétionville. Despite that, Dorfeuille immediately recognized him.
Pierre Esperance, a human rights advocate who has been critical of the slow pace of the Haitian investigation, said while he credits Dorfeuille and Jacques for making the arrest, the operation was haphazard, and underscored his concerns. “Ever since a wanted poster was sent out for Badio, the police never mobilized to arrest him,” Esperance said. “There was no will. Badio continued to circulate, he attended meetings…they never made a move to arrest him.”
It is also not lost on Esperance that Badio was headed in the direction of Fort Jacques, the neighborhood where he was reportedly hiding out and a year ago fell under the control of gang leader Vitel’homme Innocent, whom Esperance has accused of protecting Badio. Innocent is named in the Haitian police investigation and is said to have accompanied former Sen. Joseph Joël John when the latter went to rent vehicles used in the plot. On Tuesday, the Department of Justice announced officials had indicted Innocent, already the subject of a $1 million FBI bounty for information leading to his arrest in the abduction of 16 American missionaries and, separately, in the kidnapping of a U.S. citizen couple in Haiti, one of whom was killed during the ordeal. The rest of the captives were freed after a ransom was paid. Earlier this month, John, who also goes by the name John Joël Joseph, pleaded guilty in Miami federal court to conspiring with others in Haiti and South Florida to kill Moïse, including attending a key meeting with Colombian commandos on July 6, 2021 — the day before the assassination. He admitted to helping obtain rental vehicles, made introductions to Haitian gang members and tried to get firearms for the co-conspirators’ operation targeting the president, according to a factual statement filed with his plea agreement. Joseph’s goal was to become the prime minister under Moïse’s successor following the leader’s removal from office John faces possible life in prison at his Dec. 19 sentencing, but could get a reduced sentence if he cooperates with the investigation, according to his plea agreement. A well-known Haitian politician, he is one of 11 individuals facing charges related to the killing in South Florida. Two others have also pleaded guilty while eight more defendants are awaiting trial. Resolving questions over the assassination of Moïse is a top priority for many, including foreign diplomats assigned to the United Nations. During a U.N. Security Council meeting on Monday about the deteriorating situation in Haiti, the Russian Federation noted that the tragedy of the Haitian president’s death has served as a trigger for the country’s destabilization, and that after more than two years the mastermind of the assassination remains unidentified. “We can hardly anticipate a different scenario, since the investigation is being carried out by the same country whose citizens are suspected of committing the assassination,” Deputy Permanent Representative Anna Evstigneeva said. Miami Herald federal courts reporter Jay Weaver contributed to this report.