Escape costs senator US$12,000
Haitian assassination suspect pays hefty for boat trip to Jamaica; tried to bribe police who arrested him.
2022-05-17 19:34:33 - VI News Staff
The second Haitian president assassination suspect to be caught in Jamaica paid handsomely to get here with his family by sea, and tried to bribe law enforcers who arrested him early Saturday morning in a St Elizabeth village in south-western Jamaica, the Jamaica Observer can report.
Former Haitian Opposition Senator John Joel Joseph is one of three key suspects being hunted in relation to the July 2021 assassination of former Haitian President Jovenel Moise.
In his bid to flee arrest and prosecution, Joseph was said by investigators to have paid US$12,000 to get to Jamaica by boat last December. He was accompanied by his wife and their two children when he successfully made the trip here, and regularly paid community folk in Warminster village, near Alumina Partners, in the constituency of St Elizabeth South Eastern, to keep his identity away from the radar of snoopers, telling them often that he wanted to “find a better life here”, information reaching the Sunday Observer suggested.
When he was held by police, acting on a tip, Joseph was said to have also offered $2 million to law enforcers as a bribe.
According to Sunday Observer sources, the former lawmaker begged police officers not to allow him to be deported, claiming that he “would be killed” if he were to be returned to his homeland.
The Sunday Observer was told that Joseph, who did not attempt to deny his identity, was found with a stash of documents all written in French, which investigators are going over in a bid to get more details.
Joseph, who had a US$61,000 bounty placed on his head, was holed up in a house with his wife, said to be an attorney-at-law. The children, one of whom is 18 years old, were sleeping in another house nearby.
Up to the time of his capture, about 2:00 am, Joseph and his family were being aided by community folk in their everyday activities.
The Sunday Observer was informed that the former senator, who is one of three suspects that the National Police of Haiti (PNH) issued three wanted notices for in July last year, got the money through his cash-rich co-conspirator for the journey by boat — a common occurrence by Haitians, though many of them head to Jamaica because of tough economic conditions in the French-speaking country which borders the Dominican Republic, and forms the country of Hispaniola.