A senior Haitian police official was shopping at the local supermarket on a recent weekend when someone caught his attention: the country’s most wanted man.
The official, Ernst Dorfeuille, immediately recognized Joseph Félix Badio, a former military officer who had handled drug and corruption cases at the Ministries of the Interior and Justice, because he had once worked with him.
Now Mr. Badio was a fugitive, the target of a warrant seeking to question him about the key role police said he played in an infamous crime: the assassination of Haiti’s president, Jovenel Moïse, in July 2021.
Mr Dorfeuille called for help and, within minutes, four police officers armed with assault rifles arrived and arrested Mr Badio as he was walking away from the supermarket outside Haiti’s capital.
Mr. Dorfeuille confirmed to the Times details about Mr. Badio’s capture that appeared in Haitian news media, but declined a broader interview.
It is unclear how Badio, accused by some of the men implicated in the plot of having given the order to kill Moïse, managed to evade Haitian authorities for more than two years.
According to the police, at the time of his arrest Mr. Badio was driving a vehicle registered to an employee of the Ministry of Justice.
His arrest sparked reactions of joyful amazement among many Haitians, who have become cynical in a country where corruption and impunity are often the norm.
Pierre Espérance, executive director of a major Haitian human rights organization, said Mr. Badio’s seemingly random arrest raised questions about how aggressively he was being sought.
“He was untouchable, because he knew too much,” Mr. Espérance said.
Mr Moïse was shot dead in his bedroom in the early hours of July 7, 2021, after police said his official residence had been attacked by a team of 20 former Colombian soldiers hired by a Miami area security company.
Two parallel investigations into the assassination are underway in Haiti and South Florida. Dozens of people are imprisoned in Haiti, but so far none have been charged.
In Miami, 11 people were indicted in federal court in February for their roles in the conspiracy. Three have pleaded guilty, including one of the Colombians, Germán Rivera, who was sentenced to life in prison last month. All three were charged with conspiracy to kidnap and murder a person outside the United States.
Mr. Badio, who was described in a detailed Haitian police report as the “orchestra conductor” of the plot, was not charged with the murder. In Haiti, official charges tend to come much later in the legal process.
Haitian police said Badio rented two vehicles carrying the president’s assassins, as well as a house on the same street as Moïse’s residence to conduct surveillance.
After his arrest, Mr. Badio appeared briefly before a judge and was then transferred to Haiti’s main prison. Jonas Mezilus, a lawyer representing Mr. Badio, said that because his client had not been formally charged, he did not know how he would defend himself.
A year ago, Badio gave an audio statement to a Haitian news outlet in which he proclaimed his innocence, saying he had been made a “scapegoat” for Moïse’s assassination and that he was willing to talk to authorities, including l ‘FBI.
“I am available today,” he said. “I am a slave to the law.”
US court documents filed as part of the South Florida indictment refer to an unnamed “co-conspirator” who passed the order to kill the president.
Some lawyers representing defendants charged in South Florida believe Mr. Badio is the co-conspirator and could eventually face legal charges in the United States as well. A Justice Department declined to comment on Mr. Badio’s status.
Because Mr. Badio has never been questioned about Mr. Moïse’s murder, legal experts say he could provide vital answers to a case that remains shrouded in mystery.
US prosecutors allege that the owners of the Miami-area security firm Counter Terrorist Unit planned and financed the assassination, seeking to profit from lucrative contracts under a new government. But they left open the question of whether there were other masterminds in Haiti and what role they may have played in the plot.
Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry praised Badio’s arrest. “This is an important step forward in the investigation,” he said in a statement.
But Henry himself has been linked to the assassination by Haitian authorities who say that phone records show that Mr. Badio called Mr. Henry several times in the days before and in the hours after Mr. Moïse’s murder.
Last year, when a judge in the case demanded that Mr. Henry answer questions about his relationship with Mr. Badio, he was fired by the justice minister and fled the country. At the time, the judge wrote that there was “sufficient compromising evidence” to prosecute Mr Henry.
Mr Henry denied any involvement. In response to questions for this article, his spokesman said that Mr. Henry received many phone calls on the day of Mr. Moïse’s murder, “but none with Mr. Badio.”
Mr. Badio is a former Haitian army officer who worked in strategic communications before entering the civil service. The Times contacted a dozen former and current officials who worked with him, but none would speak publicly.
His father immigrated to New York in the early 1960s, according to a person who worked with Mr. Badio in the Haitian government and asked to remain anonymous because he feared for his safety by speaking publicly about Mr. Badio.
The young Badio lived briefly in New York and attended Medgar Evers College, part of the City University of New York system. according to his Facebook page. The college confirmed that someone named Joseph Félix Badio studied there from 1992 to 1993, although there was no record of him having graduated.
He later bought a four-bedroom house in a residential neighborhood in Rockland County, just north of New York City, where his wife and two children still live, according to property and phone records. A Times reporter visited the house, but no one answered the door.
The person who worked with him said that Mr. Badio was fascinated by weapons and everything related to security and intelligence. He also seemed resentful of those in power who did not sufficiently recognize his talent, according to several people who had worked with him and followed his career.
“Badio was extremely well connected not only within the political spectrum, but also in the security field, at a pretty high level,” said Jake Johnston, a Haiti expert at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, who he studied Badio’s background.
Referring to Badio’s superiors in the Haitian government, Johnston said: “He was also someone that these people relied on to run things. He had a reputation as someone who was always there to get things done.
Mr. Espérance, director of the human rights group, said he had met Mr. Badio once a decade ago. He recalled that Mr. Badio “spoke about his dealings with US agencies, the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration, but it was never known whether it was false or not.”
A State Department report confirmed that Mr. Badio attended an anti-gang conference in the United States in 2009.
Two months before Moïse’s assassination, Badio had been fired from the Justice Ministry’s anti-corruption unit for accepting $30,000 from a jailed man accused of killing a well-known local radio station owner, according to a letter from Il head of Mr. Badio at the ministry, as well as a press release from the ministry.
The transcripts, which point to Mr. Badio’s involvement in the plot, are part of the prosecution’s evidence in the South Florida case and were reviewed by The Times.
In his audio message to Haitian news, Mr. Badio denounced unnamed members of the Haitian government who he said had been involved in the assassination plot.
“If you think you can get away with executing me,” he said, “well, you’re knocking on the wrong door.”
Camilla Baker contributed reporting from Rockland County, NY, and Harold Isaac from Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
