Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a 67-year-old Haitian American pastor and medical doctor who formerly served as director of the Haitian Church Planting Department for the Florida Baptist Convention, has pleaded not guilty to conspiring to assassinate the late Haitian President Jovenel Moïse.
Sanon’s not-guilty plea came ahead of his trial, which began Monday, for his alleged role in the July 7, 2021, assassination of Moïse.
The president was fatally shot 12 times at his private residence in the hills above Port-au-Prince. His wife, former Haitian first lady Martine Moïse, was also shot multiple times but survived after receiving medical treatment in Florida.
A December 2022 complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida said Sanon was among several Colombian nationals and Haitian American dual citizens arrested and charged in connection with Moïse’s killing.
Federal investigators allege that Sanon met with others in South Florida to discuss “regime change” in Haiti and support for Sanon, who was an aspiring Haitian political candidate. The U.S. Department of Justice says a list of equipment and weapons needed for the regime-change operation was generated after that meeting and shared with Sanon and others.
According to court filings, Sanon was later told that overthrowing the president would require weapons and other gear, including M4 rifles, M-60 machine guns, Kalashnikovs, pistols, silencers, bulletproof vests, tear gas and more than $13,000 worth of ammunition.
The alleged conspirators then hired about 20 Colombian nationals with military training to help overthrow the president and to provide security for Sanon.
According to the complaint, Sanon worked with others to ship about 20 bulletproof vests out of the country without the required export license from the U.S. Department of Commerce. He is accused of shipping the vests under the false description “medical x-ray vests.”
According to the complaint, multiple witnesses later said in interviews that on or about July 7, 2021, “several individuals arrived outside President Moise’s residence, some of whom were wearing the ballistic vests, and falsely announced to those inside the residence that the individuals were engaged in a ‘DEA Operation’ in an attempt to ensure compliance by President Moise’s security and other civilians.”
The complaint adds: “The individuals entered the President’s home, and the President was subsequently killed.”
Sanon allegedly conspired “to launch, and participated in, a military expedition against Haiti” by hiring and sending a “team to the country to instigate a violent coup against its lawful leader, President Jovenel Moïse,” The Miami Herald reports. He also faces charges of conspiring to smuggle goods out of the U.S., falsifying shipping paperwork and helping others illegally export goods, a charge known as aiding and abetting.
If convicted on the conspiracy charge, Sanon could face life in prison.
On Monday, more than 100 potential jurors were screened for the trial at the Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. U.S. Courthouse in downtown Miami, the newspaper noted.
Some who know Sanon have long insisted he is innocent.
“It’s obvious he’s being framed,” Sanon’s brother, Jean Sanon, told the Daily Mail in 2021 from his home in West Palm Beach, Florida.
The Rev. Larry Caldwell, a Florida pastor who once worked with Sanon to set up churches and medical clinics in Haiti, told the Associated Press that he did not see Sanon as a killer.
“I know the character of the man,” Caldwell said. “You take a man like that and you’re then going to say he participated in a brutal crime of murder, knowing that being associated with that would send him to the pits of hell? […] If there was one man who would be willing to stand in the breach to help his country, it would be Christian.”
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