It's confirmed, here's video of mercenaries captured in #Haiti being escorted to their plane (without handcuffs) by US Emb. personnel. Local press being told they will be debriefed by FBI upon arrival. Haiti protests leaders vowing to continue pressure to force #PHTK from power. pic.twitter.com/T2dcRl2fFb
— HaitiInfoProject 📡 (@HaitiInfoProj) February 20, 2019
Americans arrested in Haiti claiming to be on ‘government mission’ return to US
The five Americans who allegedly claimed they were on “a government mission” when they were arrested driving around Haiti with a stash of guns headed back to the US Wednesday, according to a report.
A video posted by local outlets shows the men being escorted through Toussaint Louverture Airport in Port-au-Prince to their flight by US Embassy staffers.
“They left,” a Haitian police source told The Miami Herald on Wednesday evening.
The men, former Navy Seal officers Christopher Michael Osman and Christopher Mark McKinley and former Marine Veteran Kent Leland Kroeker as well as Dustin Porte and Talon Ray Burton were arrested Sunday at a police checkpoint in Port-au-Prince.
Inside their cars were six automatic rifles, six pistols, two professional drones and three satellite phones.
Asked what they were doing in Haiti, the men told police “they were on a mission, and they didn’t have to speak to us,” Port-au-Prince police chief Joel Casseus told the paper. “They said they were on a government mission.”
Sources told The Herald that the US government intervened and expressed concern after hearing Haitian Prime Minister Jean Henry Céant call the men “mercenaries and terrorists” in a CNN interview.
The US State Department and US Embassy in Haiti didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The men were supposed to make their first appearance in court in Haiti Wednesday.