'I love my husband': Haitian president's widow speaks out

Police have arrested a dozen people after Jovenel Moise was assassinated at his home

Martine Moise, the Haitian president's widow, says her husband Jovenel, left, was assassinated by mercenaries as he worked to modernise the country.

The widow of Haiti's president Jovenel Moise has given her first public statement since being wounded in the attack that killed him, accusing mercenaries of wanting “to kill his dream, his vision, his ideology".

Martine Moise issued a recorded statement in Creole from the hospital in Miami where she was being treated after the attack at their home early last Wednesday.

A version of the statement was also posted on her Twitter account on Saturday.

“I’m alive, thanks to God,” she said in the recording, which was broadcast on local radio stations.

“But I love my husband Jovenel. We fought together for more than 25 years. During all these years, love radiated within the home. But suddenly, the mercenaries came and pelted my husband with bullets.

“You have to be a notorious criminal without guts to assassinate a president like Jovenel Moise with impunity without giving him the chance to speak.

“You knew who the president was fighting against. These people hired mercenaries to kill the president and his family because of the projects of roads, electricity, drinking water supply, organisation of the referendum and elections.

“The mercenaries who assassinated the president are currently behind bars, but other mercenaries currently want to kill his dream, his vision, his ideology.”

Police say they have arrested more than a dozen people in connection with the assassination, most of them retired Colombian soldiers, and are searching for more.

It remains unclear who hired the attackers and why.