Two foreign mercenaries suspected of assassinating Haiti President Jovenel Moïse were paraded by gun cops in the back of a ute as a US citizen was reportedly arrested.Dramatic footage shows security forces detaining two more of the men suspected of the brutal killing of Mr Moïse at his family home in the early hours of Wednesday (local time).
The men, pictured holding hands and wearing clothes covered in dust, were taken to a police station in Petion-Ville, Port-au-Prince, Haiti Times reports.
The footage, published by multiple Haitian media outlets, shows jeering crowds lining the streets as the two men were escorted by three gun cops.
A dozen men on motorbikes with cameras were pictured following the ute and the police station in the capital was surrounded by an angry mob.
“The special units are trying to protect the police station, because the population is very mad and is trying to get to them, to burn them,” Mathias Pierre, Haiti’s minister of elections, told The Washington Post.
“We’re trying to avoid that.”
James Solages, a US citizen, is among six people arrested so far over Mr Moïse’s killing, Mr Pierre said.
At least one other suspect is also believed to be a Haitian American.
Cops gunned down four suspects in a fierce gun battle after Mr Moïse was “riddled with 12 bullets” during the armed assault on his home at 1am local time, officials said.
The former head of state was found laying on his back with 12 large wounds and one eye “gouged out”, magistrate Carl Henry Destin told local media.
Mr Destin said a maid and a boy on duty were tied up by a group of armed commandos who shouted “DEA operation” as they entered the property.
The gunmen, who Haitian officials claim are “foreign mercenaries” who spoke a mix of Spanish and English with an American accent, ransacked the president’s office and bedroom.
Moïse’s daughter, Jomarlie, survived by hiding in her brother’s room.
Speaking to Haitian media, Mr Destin said the president was found “lying on his back, with blue pants, a white shirt stained with blood, his mouth open, his left eye gouged out” and with “twelve orifices”.
“We saw a bullet impact at the level of his forehead, one in each nipple, three at the hip, one in the abdomen,” he added, stressing the bullet holes were made by a “large caliber weapon and with 9mm projectiles”.
Police chief Leon Charles said his men “blocked” the group from leaving Mr Moïse’s compound and have been “battling” them ever since.
Interim Prime Minister Clause Joseph has declared a two-week “stage of siege”, imposing martial law, which has seen the Caribbean nation’s borders sealed and all flights out of Port-au-Prince halted.
Another official called the assassins “well trained professional commandos” and “foreign mercenaries” who carried high-powered guns and dressed in black, Fox News reports.
Video footage from the capital on Wednesday showed smoke billowing from several areas and sounds of gunfire.
Footage emerged appearing to show gunmen posed as DEA agents storming the politician’s home before he was shot dead in front of his terrified wife.
The dramatic footage shows a series of cars rolling towards Mr Moïse’s house as other armed gang members follow on foot.
Just moments later he was gunned down in what has been branded a “hateful, inhumane and barbaric act”.
The First Lady, Martine Moïse, is fighting for her life after being shot multiple times in the attack.
The 47-year-old has been flown to Florida and taken to Baptist Hospital in Miami for treatment, where she is in a stable but critical condition, according to NPR.
Haiti’s ambassador to the US, Bocchit Edmond, said there was “no way” US drug agents carried out the bloody attack.
This article originally appeared in The Sun and was reproduced with permission