PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, June 26, (AP): Claude Joseph, who was Haiti’s acting prime minister when President Jovenel Moïse was gunned down in July 2021, came under fire Wednesday as judges investigating the killing questioned suspects in the case. It was the first time Joseph testified since attorneys for some suspects successfully appealed a court ruling that there was sufficient evidence to hold a trial.

Since then, many questions have remained unanswered despite a new investigation. Joseph and Moïse’s widow, Martine Moïse, were indicted last year after a judge accused them of complicity and criminal association. Both have repeatedly denied those accusations. Joseph on Wednesday called the judge’s report that indicted him "political, unfair and flawed.”

He said it was a tactic used to "neutralize” him because he organized demonstrations across Haiti against Ariel Henry, whom Joseph said was illegally sworn in as prime minister less than two weeks after the president was killed. At the time of his killing, Moïse had only nominated Henry as prime minister. Joseph noted that he didn’t make a grab for power after the assassination.

"I said that everything was under the control of the National Police and the Haitian Armed Forces. Not under the control of the acting prime minister that I was then,” he said. Judge Emmanuel Lacroix grilled Joseph for several hours on Wednesday, repeatedly asking how it was possible he did not know about the plot as prime minister, since that position officially presides over Haiti’s National Police High Council.

"Like the victimized president, I was unaware of the plot,” said Joseph, who remained calm during an hours-long interrogation as he faced pointed questions from several judges. Joseph said funds for intelligence operations at the offices of the president and prime minister are less than the $20 million it cost to kill Moïse.

"I must admit that no matter what means the prime minister had at his disposal to carry out its support work, it could not have saved the president’s life,” Joseph said. Lacroix also pressed Joseph about why he didn’t call the president when he first heard something had happened at Moïse’s private residence. "I let the police do their work,” he said. "They were already on it.”