MIAMI, United States (AFP) — Eighteen suspects in the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise have been transported to Florida to stand trial, United States (US) officials said Sunday.

Moise, 53, was gunned down on July 7, 2021, at his private residence by a hired group of about 20 military-trained Colombian mercenaries. His security detail did not intervene to protect him.

“Today’s multi-location and international arrests underscore the FBI’s continued commitment to bringing all participants in this plot to justice,” FBI special agent Brett Skiles said on X.

In the same post, federal prosecutor Jason Reding Quinones said: “18 transported in military plane from Haiti to face American justice in the Southern District of Florida.”

“Five years later, we are still bringing defendants before American courts, and we are not finished,” Quinones wrote, adding that 30 suspects have thus far been indicted in the killing.

Among those extradited is a main suspect in the probe — Joseph Felix Badio, a former anti-corruption official at Haiti’s Ministry of Justice, Haitian government and police sources told AFP.

The others are Colombian mercenaries, according to the same sources.

In May, four men were convicted in a federal court in Miami of charges including conspiracy to kill or kidnap Moise, conspiracy to provide material support and violating the US Neutrality Act to engage in an illicit military operation abroad.

The men face possible sentences of life in prison.

All four were linked to CTU, a private security firm based in Florida, and lured into the plot by the prospect of securing lucrative contracts in the event of Moise’s ouster, according to federal prosecutors.

Eleven people have already been indicted in connection with the assassination in US courts, which have jurisdiction over plots hatched on American soil.