Haitian President Jovenel Moïse reportedly made a desperate call to the national police commissioner pleading with him to save his life, moments before he was assassinated. He reportedly spent 10 minutes calling the police commissioner and another officer desperately trying to summon security for help, new reports claim.
The chilling details, reported by the Miami Herald, show that Moïse's security staff didn't respond to his frantic pleas. The 53-year-old was shot dead in his bedroom when assassins armed with assault rifles stormed his home in the hills above Port-au-Prince in Haiti in the early hours of July 7.
Desperate Last Minute Call
"They are shooting by the house! Mobilize people!" Moïse reportedly had said over phone to the national police commissioner in the first call. When no help came from the commissioner, Moïse called a tactically trained officer with the Haiti National Police and pleaded to him: "Where are you?... I need your assistance, now!... My life is in danger. Come quick! Come save my life!"
Questions are now being raised as to why it took so long for authorities to respond even after president pleaded for help in multiple phone calls before his death. The tactically trained officer told the Miami Herald that he heard the sound of an assault rifle before the phone call ended. He immediately deployed a three-car convoy to the president's home.
Also, the national police commissioner who received the first phone call from Moïse said he made four phone calls over a 14-minute stretch as he made his way to the president's home. However, by that time Moïse the assassins had already completed their job.
The first call was made at 1.35am was to Dimitri Hérard, who was head of security for the president. He told the commissioner that he was deploying help. The commissioner then called another senior member of the security team around 1.38am but his call went unanswered.
At 1.47am he called the commander of the specialized tactical unit called Counter Assault Team and at 1.50 am he called the Haiti Police chief Léon Charles.
Why the Delay?
According to the Miami Herald, Moïse was shot in the forehead, chest, hip and stomach, and his left eye was gouged, according to Haitian Judge Charles Henry Destin, who documented the bloody crime scene. However, what is more surprising is the delay in deploying force to save Moïse.
According to the source speaking to the Miami Herald, Charles had already deployed a convoy to the Moïse home and that he alive at least till 1.45am, going by the phone logs.
Authorities have so far detained 18 Colombians and two Haitian Americans, while three Colombians were killed and five are still on the lam.
Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a South Florida-based Haitian doctor, and James Solages, a Haitian American who allegedly coordinated with Miami-based Venezuelan company CTU Security in the plot, have been arrested.
Several people who received calls from inside Moïse and others present at the President's home moments before he was assassinated described his final moments to the Miami Herald and the McClatchy Washington Bureau but on condition of anonymity.
"They came inside, went straight to the room and kept talking to someone on the phone to identify the president," the officer who received the president's call told the news outlet.
"They turned the house upside down," he said.
The officer form the Counter Assault Team said once the convoy arrived, they saw a group of heavily armed men - since identified as the Colombians - wearing white t-shirts carrying assault rifles and they shouted: "DEA operation, get back."
The group started advancing on them and Hérard told his officers to get back, according to the officer who spoke to the president.
After the Colombians retreated, an officer was finally able to go inside the president's home where he found his body slumped in his bedroom.
