In this file photo Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, accompanied by his wife, Martine Marie Etienne Joseph, speaks to a group of Haitians living in South Florida who welcomed him as he makes his first visit to Miami as president during a community meeting at the Little Haiti Cultural Center on Friday, June 16, 2017. Photo: PEDRO PORTAL pportal@miamiherald.com

While the president was shot a dozen times during the brazen middle-of-the-night attack at his home in the hills above Haiti’s capital on July 7, 2021, his widow survived and was airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital to be treated for her wounds.

Martine Moïse, 50, was awarded $5,305,387 by U.S. District Judge Jose Martinez for her hospital bills, travel and security that she hired when she returned to Haiti 10 days later. Her restitution was jointly recommended by federal prosecutors and defense attorneys following lengthy negotiations.

Although Martine Moïse and her representatives have asserted she was shot in the arm, her injuries have long been a source of debate in Haiti, where earlier this year she was indicted in her husband’s death along with 50 other people, some of them once close to the slain president.

The late president’s elder son, Joverlein Moïse, who is living in Quebec, Canada, was awarded $865,396. It is not clear from the judge’s order why the six convicted defendants have been ordered to compensate the son, who was not in the home at the time of the assassination. The son filed a motion in a Port-au-Prince court to join the investigation, which under Haiti’s French-style law allows an individual hurt by a crime to seek damages from the perpetrators.

It remains to be seen how much the president’s widow and elder son will receive from the six ordered to pay restitution for the 53-year-old Haitian leader’s death, because only one of men is known to have any assets.

There’s also a tinge of irony in the federal judge’s order to compensate the widow: Although U.S. authorities view Martine Moïse as a “victim” in her husband’s fatal shooting, in Haiti she’s accused of playing a role in the assassination plot.

Martine Moïse’s South Florida attorney, Paul Turner, called the allegations by a Haitian investigative judge “nonsense” and “politically motivated,” saying she had no “advanced knowledge” of the assassination.

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