U.S. law enforcement agents arrested a Colombian man accused of involvement in the July assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse at his Port-au-Prince residence, the Justice Department announced on Tuesday (Jan. 4).

Mario Antonio Palacios, 43, was deported from Jamaica and intercepted by U.S. authorities during a layover in Panama. The DOJ said Palacios agreed to travel to Miami where a criminal complaint was filed in the Southern District of Florida.

According to The Washington Post, the complaint was filed in November and unsealed Tuesday. It says that Palacios gave “voluntary statements” to U.S. officials during an October interview in Jamaica.

He is charged with “conspiracy to commit murder or kidnapping outside the United States and providing material support resulting in death, knowing or intending that such material support would be used to prepare for or carry out the conspiracy to kill or kidnap.”

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On July 7, 2021, gunmen killed Moïse in a bedroom at his residence. His wife, Martine Moïse, was shot but survived the assault by pretending to be dead. She said the killers searched her husband’s files and fled after taking documents, the president’s wife told The New York Times in the weeks after the assassination.

According to the Post, Haitian officials detained several dozen people in connection with the assassination without charing any of them or identifying a motive for the killing. Palacios is the first suspect charged by the U.S., and he may reveal details about the assassination.

Federal authorities alleged in the complaint that the plot initially focused on kidnapping Moïse as part of an arrest operation, but it ultimately resulted in a plot to kill him. Palacios was among at least 20 Colombian former military personnel, Haitian-Americans and others involved in the scheme. Palacios said he learned on July 6 that the plan was to assassinate the former president.

If convicted, Palacios faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.