Businessman Samir Handal Pleads Not Guilty in Miami as Federal Case Over Haitian President's Assassination Expands

Samir Handal, a 68-year-old businessman accused of helping support the plot that ended in the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, pleaded not guilty to all three federal charges against him on Friday, Oct. 9, in Miami federal court, the latest step in a federal prosecution that has grown to more than 40 defendants.

The arraignment started more than an hour late while the court waited for a Haitian Creole interpreter, Local 10 News and CBS News Miami reported. Handal's attorney, Paul Petruzzi, asked for a jury trial.

The charges against Handal

Handal faces three counts, including providing material support for a Neutrality Act violation resulting in death and conspiracy to kill or kidnap a person outside the United States, according to the Miami Herald. He faces up to life in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors allege Handal owned the house where Christian Emmanuel Sanon, the South Florida pastor and physician whom the plotters allegedly wanted to install as Haiti's leader, stayed before the attack. At a Sept. 28 detention hearing, prosecutors portrayed Handal as a Sanon backer who provided housing, supplies, weapons and money, and who expected an ambassadorship if Sanon took power, the Herald reported. They also said he had used three passports since the assassination.

Handal has denied any involvement in the killing. Petruzzi argued at the hearing that knowing about an effort to remove a president is not the same as knowing he would be murdered, and he challenged the allegation that Handal supplied weapons and equipment.

Held without bond

U.S. Magistrate Judge Eduardo Sanchez ordered Handal held until trial. Petruzzi had proposed release on a $1 million personal surety bond secured by Handal's Miami home, with home confinement and surrender of his travel documents.

Sanchez found that Handal's U.S. citizenship, residence and family ties partly rebutted the legal presumption that he would flee, but concluded prosecutors had shown he was a serious flight risk and a danger to the community, according to the Herald.

Handal has been sought in the case for years. Turkish police detained him in Istanbul in November 2021 on an Interpol notice after he left Haiti, and a Turkish court later rejected Haiti's request to extradite him and ordered his release. He was among several defendants already in the United States when prosecutors unsealed an expanded indictment in September.

A case that has grown to dozens of defendants

Moïse was shot 12 times at his home near Port-au-Prince on July 7, 2021, when a squad of about two dozen mostly Colombian former soldiers stormed the residence. His wife, Martine Moïse, was wounded.

Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of Florida say the plot was largely planned and financed in South Florida. According to court records cited by the Associated Press, the conspirators met in South Florida in April 2021, planned to steer contracts to the Doral-based Counter Terrorist Unit security firm, and paid mercenaries in part with money obtained from federal COVID-19 business aid programs.

The case expanded sharply last month under a new superseding indictment. On Sept. 20, Joseph Félix Badio, a former official in Haiti's Justice Ministry and anti-corruption unit, and 17 former Colombian soldiers were flown from Port-au-Prince to Miami aboard a U.S. military aircraft after years in Haitian custody. The next day, 22 defendants made first appearances before U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisette Reid, the Herald reported, and prosecutors now describe the scheme as a planned coup that included the killing or kidnapping of Moïse. Five newly charged defendants were not yet in custody.

U.S. prosecutors have now charged more than 40 people in connection with the assassination, and about a dozen have been convicted, five of whom are serving life sentences, the AP reported in late September.

Where other defendants stand

The status of key defendants, based on court reporting by the AP, the Miami Herald and local outlets:

Sanon, a dual Haitian American citizen, had been set to be tried alongside the four men convicted in May, but his case was separated for health reasons. Reuters and Jurist reported that his trial began Sept. 28 before U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Becerra. Another newly transferred defendant, former Colombian special forces soldier Victor Albeiro Pineda Cardona, whom prosecutors accuse of entering the residence and taking part in the shooting, was denied bond at the same Sept. 28 hearing as Handal.

Why the case matters in South Florida

The prosecution has unfolded in Miami because, according to federal prosecutors, South Florida was the operational and financial hub of the plot. The security firm that recruited the Colombians was based in Doral, and the lending companies that prosecutors say financed it were based in Broward County.

The case is also followed closely in South Florida's large Haitian community, where many families still have ties to a country that has had no president since Moïse's death. In Haiti, the investigation has repeatedly stalled as judges stepped aside citing threats and gangs seized the downtown Port-au-Prince courthouse. Haiti's Ministry of Justice and Public Security said recently that proceedings there continue to face significant difficulties, the AP reported.

The transfer of the Colombian defendants has drawn a diplomatic response. Colombia's president has publicly defended the former soldiers, and Colombia has moved to provide them with a state-funded legal defense, according to the Haitian Times and Latin Post.

What's next

With Handal's plea entered, his case moves toward trial on the expanded indictment, though no trial date has been publicly reported. Badio is due back in court Oct. 14 for his delayed arraignment and detention hearing, and the Sanon trial continues before Judge Becerra. The four men convicted in May await sentencing, and prosecutors have not said whether the dozens of newly charged defendants will be tried together or in smaller groups.