Haiti interim prime minister set to step down

Haiti interim prime minister set to step down

Claude Joseph, who has nominally led Haiti as acting prime minister since the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moise, told the Washington Post he will hand power to a challenger.

This report produced by Zachary Goelman.

Haiti's acting prime minister agreed to step down in the wake of the assassination of the country's president.

In an interview with the Washington Post published on Monday, Claude Joseph said he would hand power over to Ariel Henry, a 71-year-old neurosurgeon.

The late president Jovenel Moise named Henry to the post of prime minister, but he had yet to be sworn in when gunmen stormed Moise's home and killed him on July 7.

The announcement appears to end a power struggle in the Caribbean nation between Joseph and Ariel Henry.

Joseph told the Washington Post that he and Henry had met privately over the past week.

He added that he agreed to step down on Sunday "for the good of the nation" and is willing to transfer power "as quickly as possible." Moise's assassination has pitched the already troubled nation into chaos.

The murder comes amid a surge in gang violence that has displaced thousands of people and hampered economic activity in the poorest country in the Americas.

A Colombian police chief said on Friday the assassination may have been ordered by a former Haitian justice ministry official.

He cited a preliminary investigation that has implicated Haitian-Americans and former Colombian soldiers.

Martine Moise, the assassinated president's widow, returned to Haiti on Saturday for his funeral after she was treated in a Miami hospital for injuries sustained during the attack.