Slain Haiti leader's funeral set for July 23, ex-president Aristide back home

The funeral for Haiti's slain president Jovenel Moise will take place on July 23, officials said Friday, as the troubled nation's first democratically elected leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide arrived home after receiving medical care in Cuba.

The state funeral services will take place in Cap-Haitien, a historic city in the north of Haiti, which has slid dangerously toward disorder since Moise was gunned down in his home in the early hours of July 7.

Moise's widow Martine Moise, who was seriously injured in the attack and is being treated in the United States, is expected to return home for her husband's funeral.

"The first lady, injured during the assassination of the president and hospitalized in Miami, will return to the country to participate in the funeral of her assassinated husband," interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph said at a press conference.

Moise, 53, was assassinated by a hit squad made up mostly of Colombian mercenaries, but many of the details surrounding the brazen attack remain a mystery.

Colombia's police chief Jorge Vargas said that a former Haitian justice ministry official, Joseph Felix Badio, gave two of the Colombian mercenaries the order to kill the president.

The commandos had earlier been told their mission was to arrest the president, said the Colombian police chief, whose country is conducting its own investigation of the attack.

Former Colombian soldiers Duberney Capador and German Rivera had been contracted to organize the mercenaries' arrival in Haiti, supposedly to provide security services.

During a first meeting with the two men, Badio told them he did not yet know the date the arrest was supposed to take place, said Vargas.

Around three days before the operation "Joseph Felix Badio ... told Capador and Rivera that they would have to kill the president of Haiti," said Vargas.

Badio, a former official in an anti-corruption unit within the justice ministry, is one of several people wanted by Haitian police, alongside former opposition senator Joel John Joseph. Both are described on their wanted posters as "armed and dangerous.

More than 20 people have been arrested in connection with the killing. Haitian police have accused a 63-year-old Haitian doctor with strong ties to Florida, Christian Emmanuel Sanon, of being a mastermind of the plot and having "political objectives."

Joseph said 24 police officers attached to Moise's security detail were ordered to report for questioning.

"This investigation will run its course. If you want to assassinate me, come for me," an angry Joseph said. "The most important thing for me is the investigation."