(Reuters): Haitian police arrested former justice official Joseph Felix Badio in the assassination of President Jovenel Moise, national police said on Thursday, October 19.

Badio is accused by investigators of ordering the hitmen who carried out the attack in July 2021.

Armed police intercepted Badio as he was driving out of a supermarket parking lot in Petion-Ville, a Port-au-Prince suburb, on Thursday afternoon, according to a witness at the scene.

Badio, considered the main suspect in the assassination plot by Haitian officials and rights groups, is charged with murder, attempted murder and armed robbery.

Moise was shot dead in his bedroom after a group of armed men burst into his home in the hills above Port-au-Prince.

Investigators accuse Badio of ordering the Colombian hitmen to carry out the deadly attack.