Man pleads guilty to role in Haiti president’s assassination

MIAMI (AP) — A convicted drug trafficker has pleaded guilty in U.S. federal court to participating in the assassination of Haiti’s president in 2021. Court records show that 50-year-old Rodolphe Jaar pleaded guilty Friday in Miami to conspiring to provide material support, providing material support and conspiring to kidnap and kill President Jovenel Moïse. Jaar is Haitian and Chilean. He is the first of 11 defendants charged in the United States to be convicted in the assassination plot. Sentencing is scheduled for June 2. Dozens have been arrested in Haiti, but the cases are at a virtual standstill amid death threats that have spooked judges. Moïse was shot 12 times at his private home near Haiti’s capital on July 7, 2021.