The ex-leader of the infamous Haitian gang 400 Mawozo was given a life sentence in a U.S. court on Wednesday for orchestrating the abduction in 2021 of a group of American missionaries, as well as a Canadian individual.
Joly “Yonyon” Germine, aged 34, was convicted in May after a 10-day trial of one charge of conspiring to carry out hostage-taking and 16 counts of kidnapping a U.S. citizen for ransom, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.
Germine, who has been in U.S. custody since May 2022, had previously admitted guilt and received a 35-year prison term for his involvement in smuggling firearms from the U.S. to Haiti and laundering ransom funds paid to his gang for other abductions.
As part of the sentence handed down on Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Washington, he will not be eligible for supervised release, which is the federal equivalent of parole.
The life imprisonment was a result of his actions while incarcerated in Haiti in coordinating the abduction of 16 American citizens, including five minors, who were part of the Christian Aid Ministries based in Ohio. A member from Canada of the Mennonite missionary group was also among those taken.
Christian Aid Ministries confirmed the abduction of a Canadian among the 17 individuals linked to their organization, taken by a gang in Haiti during a visit to an orphanage.
Held Captive for Ransom
The victims were kidnapped on October 16, 2021, by masked gunmen from 400 Mawozo as they returned from visiting an orphanage in Haiti, an area situated east of Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, as revealed during the trial.
The abductors took their captives to a field, robbed them at gunpoint, and demanded $1 million US per hostage for their release, all the while consulting with Germine over the phone, according to prosecutors.
The gang initially threatened on social media to execute the hostages if the ransom was not paid. However, early in the negotiations for the hostages’ release, senior gang members proposed Germine’s freedom from Haitian custody as an alternative to paying the ransom.
