section_path: History (2020–2022)/2021 protests/July: Assassination of Jovenel Moïse
section_name: July: Assassination of Jovenel Moïse
paragraph_text: July: Assassination of Jovenel Moïse
  
  On 7 July 2021, Moïse was assassinated, allegedly by a group of 28 foreign mercenaries. Later that day, USGPN (L'Unité de Sécurité Générale du Palais National, or The General Security Unit of the National Palace) killed three of the suspected assassins and arrested 20 others. On 20 July, Ariel Henry assumed the office of prime minister. In September 2021, Henry fired a prosecutor who intended to question him about the record of phone calls, which he denied receiving, in the hours after the assassination from Joseph Felix Badio, whose involvement in the crime was suspected.
  
  Badio was arrested by Haitian police in connection with the murder on 19 October 2023. Also in 2023, a former Haitian senator, Joseph Joël John, who hoped to become president, a retired Colombian army officer, Germán Alejandro Rivera Garcia, a Haitian businessman, Rodolphe Jaar, and—in 2024—a former DEA informant, Joseph Vincent, were sentenced to life in prison in a Miami court for their roles in the assassination.
  
  In February 2024, the fifth Haitian judge to lead the murder investigation charged Moïse's wife Martine and his prime minister Claude Joseph as co-conspirators in the assassination in part based on testimony from Badio. Joseph said that Ariel Henry was "weaponizing the Haitian justice system" and that the charges against him and against Moïse's widow were politically motivated. At the same time, former police chief Léon Charles was charged with both murder and attempted murder.