Colombian Army Leader Gen. Luis Fernando Navarro (center), National Police Director Gen. Jorge Luis Vargas (best), and Army Leader Gen. Eduardo Zapateriro provide a press conference concerning the alleged participation of previous Colombian soldiers in the assassination of Haitis President Jovenel Moïse, in Bogotá on Friday.
Ivan Valencia/AP
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Ivan Valencia/AP
Colombian Armed Forces Commander Gen. Luis Fernando Navarro (center), National Police Director Gen. Jorge Luis Vargas (right), and Army Commander Gen. Eduardo Zapateriro provide an interview regarding the supposed participation of previous Colombian soldiers in the assassination of Haitis President Jovenel Moïse, in Bogotá on Friday.
Ivan Valencia/AP
The partner of Francisco Uribe, among the detained Colombians, told a Bogotá radio station that her husband had actually been hired by a security firm called CTU and was informed he would work as a bodyguard for rich households around Latin America. The woman, who requested privacy, included: “It was a task opportunity.”
The arrest in Haiti of more than a lots previous Colombian soldiers in connection with Wednesdays assassination of President Jovenel Moïse at first provoked shock and embarassment in Colombia and calls for quick justice. “Theres no method Colombia should be making global headlines due to a group of crooks and gunman,” Colombian Vice President Marta Lucía Ramírez said Friday after the handcuffed Colombians were paraded prior to TV cameras in Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital.
Previous Colombian authorities and soldiers have progressively found work abroad as soon as they retire from active task. Colombia has actually been battling guerrillas and violent drug cartels for many of the previous 50 years and between 10,000 and 15,000 soldiers and officers leave the militaries every year, according to John Marulanda, a previous army colonel who heads the Colombian Association of Retired Military Officers. Upon retirement, he stated, their pensions are relatively small prompting numerous to use their military competence to get jobs with personal security companies. “There are no guidelines avoiding them from being recruited” by outside security companies, Colombian Armed Forces Commander Gen. Luis Fernando Navarro told a news conference on Friday. Over the past two years Colombians have worked as bodyguards, helicopter pilots and frontline soldiers in Afghanistan, Dubai, Iraq, Libya and Yemen. But in many cases, authorities say, they have worked together with unlawful armed groups– like drug cartels in Colombia and Mexico. It stays unclear precisely what the detained previous Colombian soldiers were performing in Haiti, however on Friday Colombian President Iván Duque revealed that he had actually dispatched authorities intelligence representatives to Port-au-Prince to assist regional authorities examine.
Steven Benoit, an opposition senator in Haiti, blamed Moïses security information for the attack that left the president filled with bullets and his left eye gouged out. Moïse “was assassinated by his security representatives,” Benoit informed reporters in Haiti.
Jean Mary Exil, Haitis ambassador to Colombia, told Bogotás El Tiempo paper that the Colombians were not the masterminds and added that whoever was behind the assassination may try to have actually the detained army veterinarians killed to avoid them from offering testament to Haitian authorities. At a news conference in Bogotá on Friday, Colombias authorities director Gen. Jorge Luis Vargas verified that at least 13 of the apprehended Colombians are previous soldiers who had retired given that 2018.
Rather than acting like a clandestine hit team and keeping their whereabouts a secret before leaving for Haiti, a few of the Colombian army vets posted on Facebook photos of themselves at traveler sites in the Dominican Republic. “These were so-called elite task forces,” Luis Moreno, a previous acting U.S. ambassador in Haiti, told The Wall Street Journal.
The arrest in Haiti of more than a dozen previous Colombian soldiers in connection with Wednesdays assassination of President Jovenel Moïse initially provoked shock and shame in Colombia and calls for swift justice. At a news conference in Bogotá on Friday, Colombias cops director Gen. Jorge Luis Vargas confirmed that at least 13 of the apprehended Colombians are previous soldiers who had actually retired since 2018. Rather than acting like a clandestine hit team and keeping their whereabouts a trick prior to leaving for Haiti, a few of the Colombian army vets published on Facebook photos of themselves at tourist websites in the Dominican Republic. “There are no guidelines preventing them from being recruited” by outside security companies, Colombian Armed Forces Commander Gen. Luis Fernando Navarro told a news conference on Friday. It remains uncertain exactly what the detained former Colombian soldiers were doing in Haiti, but on Friday Colombian President Iván Duque announced that he had actually dispatched authorities intelligence representatives to Port-au-Prince to help regional authorities examine.
