MIAMI, United States (AFP)— A Haitian former senator on Tuesday pleaded guilty in a US federal court to conspiring with others to assassinate the Caribbean country’s president Jovenel Moise in 2021, official documents showed.

Joseph Joel John, 52, admitted to providing vehicles and other resources to support the plot, as well as meeting with several other conspirators in both Haiti and Florida, according to the plea agreement signed by John and prosecutors.

John is the third person indicted over the July 2021 slaying of Moise at his residence near the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince. The United States has jurisdiction in the case because the plot was partly organised in Florida, home to a sizeable Haitian diaspora.

Retired Colombian army officer German Rivera pleaded guilty in September to helping to carry out the murder of Moise, who was gunned down by a hired group of about 20 military-trained assassins, most of them Colombian. His security detail did not intervene.

In June, another participant in the plot, Rodolphe Jaar, who holds dual Haitian and Chilean citizenship, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison for his role in supplying weapons to the mercenaries.

The initial plan was to kidnap Moise, court documents show, but the goal eventually became murder.

A US inquiry revealed that two managers of a Miami security firm, CTU, devised a plan to kidnap Moise and replace him with Christian Sanon, a Haitian American who wanted to become president of the impoverished Caribbean country.

In exchange for toppling Moise, they were promised lucrative contracts to build infrastructure and provide security forces and military equipment in a future government led by Sanon, who has also been indicted in the United States, prosecutors said.

Since Moise’s assassination, Haiti has spiraled into chaos, as increasingly violent gangs control most of Port-au-Prince and other parts of the country. Elections have not taken place in Haiti since 2016.

Last week, the UN Security Council gave the go-ahead for the deployment of a Kenya-led international force to provide operational support to Haiti’s national police force.

Nairobi says it is ready to provide up to 1,000 personnel.