Ex-solider colleague of accused Haiti assassins: 'There has to have been a conspiracy'

Matias Gutierrez, a retired special forces sniper who now works in security, says the suspected assassins were hired as bodyguards.

• A former solider who was a colleague of the Colombian mercenaries suspected of assassinating the Haitian President says he doesn't believe the men he knew were the killers.
• He told Reuters that he and the other Colombian men were hired as bodyguards.
• He said there "has to have been a conspiracy."
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A former solider who was a colleague of the Colombian mercenaries suspected of assassinating Haitian President Jovenel Moise says he doesn't believe that the men he knows were the killers.

Haitian authorities have said 26 Colombians and two Haitian Americans were behind Moise's killing, but Matias Gutierrez, a retired special forces sniper who now works in security, told Reuters that he and the other Colombian men were hired as bodyguards.

"It wasn't our commandos. There has to have been a conspiracy," Gutierrez told Reuters. "Their extraction was total chaos. Why? Because they weren't going on an assault, they went in support of a request by the security forces of the president."

Gutierrez said he was not with the group last week because he tested positive for COVID-19.

Moise was killed in his home in the early morning of July 7. A motive for the president's killing remains unclear.