Jenny Capador still cannot believe she will never see her brother again – and she certainly does not believe that he is an assassin, as officials in two countries have now alleged.
Her brother Duberney Capador is one of at least three people killed in a police operation in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince in the aftermath of the assassination of the country’s president, Jovenel Moise, on July 7.
Haitian police say that Capador, a retired sergeant with 20 years of experience in the Colombian army, is suspected of being part of a commando squad that organized the high-level killing.
Twenty Colombians have already been arrested in connection with the death of Moise. At least one other Colombian was also killed in an encounter with Haitian security forces.
But Jenny Capador, who was very close with her brother, doesn’t believe he could have been involved in the assassination, which has thrown Haiti into further uncertainty amid escalating gang violence and an acceleration of Covid-19 infections.
Working for ‘an important man’
The job offer that kicked off a chain of events ultimately leading to Capador’s death had sounded promising at first. “I knew it since April… that he got this job offer and he was going to travel abroad and work as private security for an important man in Haiti,” Jenny Capodor told CNN.
She said her brother described a “siege” on the day of Moise’s death.
“On the morning of Wednesday, July 7, he called me and told me that, sadly, they got there to protect someone important but that they arrived late. He told me they were in a house, under siege and under fire, fighting. But he told me not to worry and not to tell our mother, that everything was going to be alright,” she said.
One of the last communications she received from her brother was a WhatsApp message saying “Amen” in response to her blessings and questions about his wellbeing. She received the message on the evening of July 7 at 5.50 p.m., according to a screenshot of the WhatsApp chat seen by CNN.
CNN has not been able to verify the claims in Capador’s messages to his sister.
The following day, she said she learned her brother had been killed in Haiti. And that Haitian officials regarded him as a suspect in the assassination of their president.
By Friday, Duberney Capador’s mugshot had been shown at a press conference by the Colombian National Police as one of the alleged killers, according to preliminary investigations by the Colombian and Haitian police.
‘He was our hero’
“It wasn’t him: I’m 100% sure of the innocence of my brother and his comrades,” Jenny Capador told CNN from Genóva, Colombia, a rural hamlet in the Department of Quindio, a hilly region famous for quality coffee and beautiful landscapes.
“My brother is an honorable man, he’s always been an excellent brother, son and father to his two sons. He served 20 years in the Army, since he was 18. He had a dream of being a warrior, of serving the fatherland and help our country achieve peace,” she said.
As a youth, Duberney Capador joined the Colombian Army’s special forces and fought rebel guerrillas in southern Colombia, his sister told CNN. She claims he was invited to train in the United States, a common practice among Colombian army elite units.
When he retired two years ago at the age of 38, Capador started working in private security, according to his sister. Officers from the Colombian army are often sought after by security companies because they are likely to have plenty of experience in direct combat, thanks to Colombia’s five decades of guerrilla warfare.
Capador says she does not know who her brother might have been protecting, how many people he was working with, nor who was apparently besieging them. She showed CNN a photograph of her brother wearing a uniform marked “CTU Security” – a US security firm – but said she was not aware he had ever done business in the United States. CNN was unable to reach CTU Security for comment.
A spokesperson from the Colombian police told CNN on Saturday they were working with preliminary evidence shared by the Haitian police through Interpol.
The chief of Colombian national intelligence travelled to Port-au-Prince on Saturday to join the investigation with a group of Colombian policemen, though CNN could not verify if he has met with the Colombian suspects detained in Haiti yet.
Jenny Capador says her only wish now is to have her brother’s body back from Haiti to mourn him as he deserved.
“We are going to give him a hero’s funeral. He was our hero and the axis of our family… He loved these hills. He should rest here.”
Etant Dupain in Port-au-Prince contributed to this report.