The President of Haiti Jovenel Moise has been assassinated by gunmen claiming to be DEA agents in a night-time raid on his home that also left his wife seriously injured, according to reports.
READ MORE : Breaking: President of Haiti assassinated at home
A group of ‘foreigners’, some of whom spoke English and Spanish, broke into Mr Moise’s home in the hills above Port-au-Prince at around 1am on Wednesday, according to a statement by country’s prime minister.
The 53-year-old was shot dead and the First Lady Martine, 47, remains in hospital after what PM Claude Joseph called a ‘hateful, inhumane and barbaric act.’
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In footage purportedly recorded by a witness, someone with an American accent shouts into a megaphone: ‘DEA operation. Everybody stand down. DEA operation. Everybody back up, stand down.’
Gunfire then erupts in the video uploaded to Instagram by someone who says they were in the Pelerin 5 neighbourhood, where the president’s house is located.
The assailants were pretending to be from the US Drugs Enforcement Agency and were ‘mercenaries,’ a government source told The Miami Herald.
Residents reported hearing high-powered rounds and saw men dressed in black sprinting through the neighbourhood. There were also claims of a grenade going off and drones being deployed.
Further videos purportedly taken by a neighbour show men with rifles arriving outside the president’s house. It is not clear whether they are from the country’s security forces or if they are the assassins.
PM Joseph said he had taken charge of the country and the police and armed forces were taking ‘all measures to guarantee the continuity of the State and protect the Nation.’
The Biden administration called it a ‘tragic attack’ and said the White House was still ‘gathering information’ and ‘assessing right now.’ Press Secretary Jen Psaki called it an ‘horrific crime,’ adding ‘we stand ready and stand by them to provide any assistance that’s needed.’
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted that he was ‘shocked and saddened at the death of Mr Moise’, calling it ‘an abhorrent act’ and appealing for calm
It comes after Mr Moise claimed police had foiled an assassination plot in February amid massive protests in the country over claims the president was acting like a dictator and refusing to hold elections. 
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The President of Haiti Jovenel Moise has been assassinated in a nighttime raid by gunmen claiming to be DEA agents in a nighttime raid on his home that also left his wife seriously injured, according to reports (pictured with his wife Martine in October 2018)
Footage circulating in Haitian WhatsApp groups purports to show men with rifles arriving at the president’s home last night
Footage circulating online purportedly taken by a neighbour of the president shows men with rifles arriving outside the property
Watch Video below:
#Haiti President Jovenel Moïse is said to have been attacked in his residence by a commando. He’s dead.
— Marie-Rose Romain Mu (@romainmurphy) July 7, 2021
Video circulating on WhatsApp. pic.twitter.com/VJ8HJZSii8
Military vehicles block the entrance to Petion Ville, the neighborhood where the late Haitian President Jovenel Moise lived in Port-au-Prince on Wednesday
The President of Haiti Jovenel Moise, 53, (pictured at the UN in New York in 2018) has been shot dead during a raid on the presidential palace, according to the prime minister’s office 
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A group of gunmen, some of whom allegedly spoke in Spanish, broke into Mr Moise’s home at around 1am on Wednesday, according to a statement from Prime Minister Claude Joseph. He said that Haiti remained under the control of the police and armed forces and ‘all measures are taken to guarantee the continuity of the State and protect the Nation.’
In response, the former auto parts dealer had 23 people arrested who he said were behind the plot including a top judge and a police officer.
‘There was an attempt on my life,’ Mr Moise said in a national address at the time. ‘I thank my head of security at the palace. The goal of these people was to make an attempt on my life. That plan was aborted.’
Mr Moise’s death risks throwing the country into total disarray after months of violent demonstrations and claims that he had used armed gangsters to stay in power.
There are just 10 elected officials in the country and there is no legal framework for who should take power in the event of the president’s death.
‘There is no constitutional answer to this situation,’ Bernard Gousse, a former justice minister and legal expert, told the Herald.
Thousands took the streets of the capital earlier this year to demand that Mr Moise step down and hold elections amid his efforts to make sweeping changes to the constitution so that he could cling to power.
Opponents argue that the president, who took power in 2017, should have left office on February 7 after failing to hold elections the previous year as his term was ending.
Mr Moise claimed his five-year term was due to end in 2022 – the United States and the United Nations had called for a free and transparent election to be held by the end of 2021. The U.S. also disagreed with his efforts to change the country’s constitution
In an interview last year, Mr Moise defended himself against allegations of corruption and denied that he was turning the country in a dictatorship.
‘We’re trying to find a solution to this crisis. I’m not the first president to rule by decree. And I’m confident that the answer is around the corner; then the legislature will be put in place to play its role,’ he told The Telegraph.
Mr Moise had also faced accusations of financial impropriety and power-grabbing by limiting powers for auditing government contracts and creating an intelligence agency that only answers to the president.
He wanted to abolish the Senate, leaving a single legislative body, and replace the post of prime minister with a vice president who answered only to him, in a bid to streamline government.
Swathes of the population deemed his rule illegitimate, and he churned through a series of seven prime ministers in four years. Most recently, Mr Joseph was supposed to be replaced this week after only three months in the post.
Source: dailymail.co.uk
