The only Colombian commando to escape after the middle-of-the-night assault on Haitian President Jovenel Moïse’s residence told a federal jury on Monday that he evaded capture with help from two associates of a South Florida pastor accused in the plot, as well as two Haitian police officers, a former senator and a gang boss.

Mario Antonio Palacios Palacios, a retired Colombian soldier who once tracked down cocaine traffickers before pleading guilty to federal conspiracy charges in Moïse’s assassination on July 7, 2021, testified that after fleeing the scene of the killing and spending the night on the streets, he made his way deeper into Pétion-Ville on the back of a motorcycle.

That’s when he came across Gordon Phénil Désir, a Haitian lawyer and head of a political party, who offered him refuge.

“He took me to his house, and he made a call,” said Palacios, whose darker complexion had always been viewed as an asset in helping him blend in as Haiti police launched a massive manhunt for the president’s killers.

Désir, a married father of two young children, is among several people accused of helping advance the conspiracy that culminated in Moïse’s killing. His name has surfaced repeatedly during the federal case against Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a Haitian American whose Miami trial began five weeks ago. Sanon, 67, faces several charges stemming from the U.S. investigation into Moïse’s death, the most serious of which is conspiring to kidnap or kill a person outside the United States.

The self-appointed replacement for Moïse, Sanon is accused of falsely claiming to have the backing of the U.S. State Department as he and four other South Florida men, convicted earlier this year, embarked on an elaborate scheme to overthrow the Haitian leader.

The plot, financed in part with fraudulently obtained pandemic relief loans, involved Haitian police officers, an ex-Haitian senator, a fired Haiti Superior Court justice, a fired anti-corruption functionary, former U.S. government informants and an active Federal Bureau of Investigation informant. It also involved a supporting cast of characters, from former soldiers in the Colombian military to close associates of the pastor, Désir among them.

Witnesses and text messages introduced during trial placed Désir at meetings where the plot evolved from a plan to capture Moïse to killing him. Evidence also linked Désir to receiving wire transfers, the transporting of the Colombian commandos around Port-au-Prince and helping them eat.

Palacios testified that Désir, along with Ashkard Pierre, another close associate of Sanon, took him and the other former soldiers from a hotel to a mountaintop house that would serve as the staging ground for the attack.

“There was Mr. Gordon, Ashkard,” he said, identifying Pierre who was arrested last month in Canada and is awaiting extradition to the United States.

The one-time head of Ayiti 2054, the political party Sanon claimed to be a member of, Désir was arrested Wednesday outside his law office in Petion-Ville, according to his Haiti lawyer. He was transferred to U.S. custody on Saturday and flown to Miami the same day.

On Monday, as Palacios wrapped up his second-day of testimony under cross-examination by Sanon’s defense lawyer Humberto Dominguez, Désir made his initial appearance before a federal magistrate judge in Miami across the street.

First appearance

An indictment, which was partially unsealed by Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué A. Lett, has Désir facing three counts. Désir is charged with one count of conspiracy to provide material support and resources to carry out a violation resulting in death; one count of providing material support and resources to carry out a violation resulting in death and the main charge of conspiring to kill or kidnap a person outside the United States.

The statutory maximum is life in prison, Lett informed Désir, should he be found guilty. The maximum term of supervised release for each, if found guilty, is also life, and the maximum fine he would face is up to $250,000.

Though Miami District Judge Jacqueline Becerra, who is presiding over the federal conspiracy trial, had assigned a court-appointed lawyer, Lett wanted to see if Désir qualified for the assistance.

Speaking through a Haitian-Creole translator and under oath, Désir testified that though he is a lawyer, his main source of income in Haiti was managing 19 apartment units at $50 an apartment, for which he earned between $500 and $900 a month.

It is difficult at the moment, he said, to practice law in Haiti because “the country is blocked” and one cannot travel easily outside of Port-au-Prince, the capital.

“I do not have any actual income because as a lawyer in Haiti, the country is not functioning,” Désir said.

His total savings in the bank was $1,000, he said, adding that his assets included a 1997 vehicle and a parcel of land in Santo 25, just east of Port-au-Prince. “I do not know what the value is at this moment,” Désir said, telling the judge that gang control of the area has made it impossible for him to access the property over the last six years.

Though Lett found that he qualified for legal assistance, she reset his hearing for Tuesday afternoon when his lawyer can be present. The government has requested pre-trial detention due to him being a risk of flight and danger to the community.

In late August, a federal grand jury returned a sixth superseding indictment in the case against Sanon. An additional 29 names were added, four of which were redacted when the indictment was unveiled just days before the start of Sanon’s trial

Désir was among four individuals whose names had been redacted from the superseding indictment, which also named Pierre and Vitel’homme Innocent, head of the Kraze Baryè, one of the largest gangs in Haiti, and “the commander” whom Palacios said hid him before he could flee to Jamaica.

While former Haiti Senator Joseph Joël John testified both at the Sanon trial and the one earlier this year that it was Pierre who contacted him on behalf of Palacios, the former solider testified that it was Gordon who made the call after he spotted him as he was on the motorcycle.

“I approached him and I asked him to help me,” Palacios said, describing for the first time how he was able to evade arrest by Haitian police. After taking him to his house located not too far from his law office, Gordon phoned someone.

“I believe he was calling the senator, John,” Palacios said.

Two police officers then came to Désir’s house and transported Palacios to Innocent’s compound. When the prosecutors presented a photo of Innocent, Palacios said he is “the commander of the group where I was hiding.”

“He was a friend of the senator,” he said. “I know that the senator called him Innocent.”

While he was treated well, Palacios said, “there were lots of children” inside the compound with guns. “That was like a pigsty,” said Palacios.

John arrived a week later. He was dropped off by his wife, Edume, who was accompanied by the same two police officers who had escorted him to Innocent’s territory, Palacios said. He also testified that he had paid Innocent for his stay from money he had stolen out of Moïse’s second-floor bedroom on the night of the deadly assault.

Both John and Palacios eventually fled Haiti by boat for Jamaica, where they separated and were arrested months apart. Palacios, the first to be arrested, was deported from Jamaica to Colombia but would be arrested in Panama and extradited to the United States while in transit.

Under cross-examination, he admitted that while he is cooperating with U.S. authorities in the case, he did not come to the United States voluntarily and had hoped to return to Colombia after Jamaica.

The plan

Palacios said he and his fellow Colombians were always told that Moïse was no longer the president of Haiti and that Sanon “was going to be the next president of Haiti.”

Three teams, he said, were tasked with entering Moïse’s house. His team, the Delta team, was tasked with going up to the second floor along with another team.

“Where did you expect to find President Moïse that night,” prosecutor Jason Wu asked.

“On the second floor,” Palacios testified.

The mission, he testified, was always that gang members would enter the house to take Moïse, and the commandos would go in only to look for some documents and evidence.

The men, he said, were told that Moïse had $40 million cash inside his bedroom, and they would each be paid a $300,000 bonus on top of their monthly $2,600 salary.

“So the bonus was more than 100 months salary,” Wu asked.

“More or less,” Palacios testified.

No such bonus was paid, and during his month’s stay in Haiti, he was never paid, Palacios said.

Palacios, like John, who took the stand before him, tried to place the blame on Sanon, even though the pastor had been sidelined in favor of a fired justice, Windelle Coq Thélot, on Haiti’s Superior Court.

Under cross-examination, Palacios acknowledged that all his communications came via Duberney Capador Giraldo and Germán Alejandro Rivera García, who served as co-leaders of the Colombian squad.

And while he insisted he was not a criminal and had been duped, Dominguez said, “but you are someone involved in killing a president of a country. Isn’t that a crime?”

Palacios responded by placing blame on people with personal interests who peppered them with lies by telling them they were being hired from Colombia to provide security to a VIP.

“After we arrived in the country, they changed the rules of the game,” he said.

“And it was Capador who recruited those poor innocent soldiers from Colombia, correct?” Dominguez said of the former soldier who was killed by Haitian police in the aftermath.

Palacios, breaking down in tears, admitted Capador was the one who did the hiring. But he did so, he said, on behalf of the Doral-area firm Counter Terrorist Unit Security and Counter Terrorist Federal Academy, or CTU, that backed Sanon’s presidential ambitions.

©2026 Miami Herald. Visit at miamiherald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.