Suspects in the Haitian president's assassination claim they broke into his house to arrest - not kill - him, reports say
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- Jovenel Moïse was killed in the bedroom of his Port-au-Prince home early July 7.
- Two of the 17 men arrested said the plan was to arrest Moïse, not kill him, per the Miami Herald.
- The motive is still unclear. Haitian authorities have accused 28 men of being part of the hit.
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Two men suspected of taking part in the assassination of Haiti's president last week have claimed that the plan was to arrest, not kill, him, the Miami Herald and Reuters reported.
Jovenel Moïse was shot 12 times in the bedroom of his private home on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince early on July 7.
Haitian authorities have accused 28 men, most of whom Colombian, of being part of the assassination plot.
As of Monday, 21 people have been arrested, Reuters reported. It is not clear how many of those 21 men were accused assassins.
Three people arrested are American, The New York Times reported Sunday. One, Christian Emmanuel Sanon, appears not to have taken part in the assassination, but is considered the mastermind.
Moïse's wife, who was also shot during the attack, said in a voice note posted to Twitter on Saturday that it happened "in the blink of an eye" and that her husband was "riddled" with bullets.
But according to two of the suspects, the plan was not to kill Moïse but arrest him, the Herald reported.
James Solages, 35, and Joseph Vincent, 55, both Haitian Americans from Florida, said the plan was to "arrest the president and go to the presidential palace with him," investigative judge Clément Noël said, according to the Herald.
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The pair said they "didn't go to kill the president" but to be translators, Noël told the newspaper.
"They said they knew what happened, but they didn't participate in the killing. They were there to translate."
According to Reuters, Solages and Vincent said they were translators for the Colombian commando unit and had an arrest warrant for Moïse, but that the president was dead by the time they arrived.
It is not clear who had issued the arrest warrant and how the men would have obtained it.
Several of the arrested Colombians said they were hired by CTU Security, a Miami-based company, the Herald reported.
Haitian officials say they arrested one of the masterminds
At a press conference Sunday, Haitian officials said they had arrested Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a Florida-based doctor, whom they consider one of the masterminds. Sanon is the third Haitian-born suspect known to be arrested, The Times reported.
Léon Charles, the Haiti police chief, said Sanon had entered Haiti in early June via private jet "with political objectives," the BBC and The Times reported.
Charles said Sanon, 63, planned to take over as president. Charles added that he had identified two other ringleaders, but did not identify them.
Several members of the hit squad had been in the country for at least three months to prepare the attack, The Guardian reported.
Moïse's killing follows years of social unrest in Haiti.
He was accused of clinging onto power, but the emerging power vacuum has triggered fears that Haiti will descend into civic chaos without external intervention.
The Haitian government has asked the US to to send troops to help stabilize the country, but the US is as yet undecided.
"We're analyzing it, just like we would any other request for assistance here at the Pentagon. It's going through a review," Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told "Fox News Sunday."