Former senator sentenced to life over 2021 assassination of Haiti’s president

A person holds a photo of late Haitian President Jovenel Moise during his memorial ceremony (Matias Delacroix/AP)

A federal judge in Miami has sentenced a former Haitian senator to life in prison for conspiring to kill Haiti’s President Jovenel Moise in 2021, which caused unprecedented turmoil in the Caribbean nation.

John Joel Joseph is the third of 11 suspects detained and charged in Miami to be sentenced in what US prosecutors have described as a plot hatched in both Haiti and Florida to hire mercenaries to kidnap or kill Mr Moise, who was 53 when he was killed at his private home near the Haitian capital of Port-Au-Prince on July 7, 2021.