Amid prevailing political turmoil, Colombian police chief General Jorge Vargas said on Friday former Haitian justice ministry official Joseph Felix Badio could have been responsible for the assassination of Haiti’s President Jovenel Moise, according to media reports.

Moise was shot dead when assassins armed with assault rifles stormed his private residence in the hills above Port-au-Prince on July 7.

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An investigation by the Colombian authorities into the killing of the Haitian president has reportedly revealed that Badio had given an order for assassination three days before the attack, Vargas said in an audio message sent to news outlets by the police, Al Jazeera reported.

The investigation was conducted by Colombia along with Haitian authorities and Interpol.

According to Vargas, the inquiry discovered that Badio had instructed former Colombian soldiers Duberney Capador and German Rivera, who had been hired to provide security services, to murder Moise.

“Several days before, apparently three, Joseph Felix Badio, who was a former official of (Haiti’s) ministry of justice, who worked in the anti-corruption unit with the general intelligence service, told Capador and Rivera that they had to assassinate the president of Haiti,” Vargas said, Al Jazeera quoted.

However, the police chief is yet to provide any proof or give more details about where the information came from.

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Hours after Moise was assassinated, Capador was killed in a shootout with Haitian police. Rivera is still being held in Haiti, while Badio, who formerly worked for Haiti’s Justice Ministry and subsequently the government’s anti-corruption unit until he was sacked in May, is still being sought by police.

Meanwhile, earlier in the day, Haiti’s National Police Chief Leon Charles, five top officials of the country’s National Police have been arrested in conjunction with President Jovenel Mose’s assassination last week.

Dimitri Hérard, the chief of Mose’s security detail, is among those held. The five policemen have not been charged, according to Charles, but Hérard has been questioned, the Wall Street Journal reported.

He also said that more than 20 members of Mose’s security detail are being questioned. On the night of the murder, some of them were on duty at the president’s residence, but Charles wouldn’t say how many.

“Our colleagues from the FBI and the Colombian delegation were able to ask some questions to some of the bad guys that we got, who we know completed the assassination,” the Wall Street Journal quoted Charles as saying.