HAITI — In an exclusive interview with The New York Times, Martine Moïse, the widow of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, has spoken out in her first interview since his assassination.
On July 7, shooters burst into their home and shot her in her arm before fatally shooting the president. She says the gunmen appeared to be searching for something.
“The only thing that I saw before they killed him were their boots,” Martine Moïse said to The Times. “Then I closed my eyes, and I didn’t see anything else.”
She says she then heard the gunmen searching their home for something.
“That’s not it. That’s not it,'” she recalled them saying. Shortly after, she heard one say,” ‘That’s it.'”
“They were looking for something in the room, and they found it,” she said, also sharing that the men all spoke in Spanish. Haiti’s languages are Creole and French.
After sharing that she thought she was dead after the gunmen left, she was perplexed to find out that none of the president’s security detail was injured.
Between 30 to 50 security personnel were stationed at the president’s home. “I don’t understand how nobody was shot,” she said. Moïse returned to Haiti almost ten days after the assassination following her release from a Miami hospital.
So far, Haitian police have arrested the head of Jovenel Moise’s security and more than 20 Colombian mercenaries for Moïse’s murder.
Martine Moïse believes that her husband’s murder was ordered by those at the very top.
“Only the oligarchs and the system could kill him,” she said. “I would like people who did this to be caught. Otherwise they will kill every single president who takes power. They did it once. They will do it again.”
Martine Moïse told the publication that she is seriously considering a run for the presidency once she undergoes further surgeries on her wounded arm.
“President Jovenel had a vision and we Haitians are not going to let that die,” she said.
