CNN
There was no mistaking the meaning in last week’s anonymous text message: Do what we say or die.
“Hey clerk, get ready for a bullet in your head, they gave you an order and you keep on doing shit,” read the July 16 text, one of several death threats sent to court clerks assisting Haiti’s investigation into the murder of former President Jovenel Moise, according to official complaints filed with Haitian police and seen by CNN.
They’re part of a cache of Internal Justice Ministry documents obtained exclusively by CNN, which reveal previously unheard testimonies from key suspects, mysterious attempts to influence the probe, and the acute danger felt by judicial investigators as they attempt to uncover who killed the president on July 7.
Death threats are not the only thing making Haitian investigators’ jobs more difficult. Multiple sources have also described to CNN a series of unusual roadblocks thrown at investigators, including difficulty in accessing crime scenes, witnesses and evidence.
The result is an investigation that has repeatedly veered from established protocol, according to both insiders and independent legal experts. The question is why?
Death threats and strange requests
Multiple Haitian officials have received death threats since their investigation began two weeks ago, documents show.
Carl Henry Destin, the justice of the peace who officially documented Moise’s ravaged home and body hours after his shooting, went into hiding just two days later. “As I am talking to you now, I am not home. I have to go into hiding somewhere faraway to talk with you,” Destin told CNN, describing in rapid-fire French the multiple threatening phone calls he had received from unknown callers.
