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<\/span>At least eight more suspects were on the run, authorities said.<\/p>\n
Sign up for The Morning newsletter from The New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWe are pursuing them. We are asking the public to help us,\u201d said Haiti\u2019s police chief, L\u00e9on Charles, before a phalanx of politicians and police.<\/p>\n Columbia\u2019s defense minister, Diego Molano, said the government was cooperating with an official request from Interpol, the global police agency, for information about the detained suspects. He added that initial information suggested that they were retired members of the Columbian military.<\/p>\n The detainees were lined up at the news conference Thursday night in handcuffs, some showing signs of physical injuries. A table displayed at least 10 Colombian passports, along with automatic weapons, sledgehammers and saws.<\/p>\n The country\u2019s interim prime minister Claude Joseph said a group of foreigners had entered the country to kill the president \u201cin a cowardly fashion.\u201d\u201cThey forgot something,\u201d he said. \u201cYou may kill the president, but you cannot kill his dreams, you cannot kill his ideology, and you cannot kill what he was fighting for. That\u2019s why I\u2019m determined for President Jovenel Mo\u00efse\u2019s family, friends and allies, and the Haitian population, to get justice.\u201d<\/p>\n Angry civilians have also joined in the hunt, capturing some suspects themselves and setting afire vehicles thought to have been used in the attack. Haiti is now basically under martial law after Mr. Joseph\u00a0declared an \u201c\u00e9tat de si\u00e8ge\u201d<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 a state of siege \u2014 that allows the police and members of security forces to enter homes, control traffic and take special security measures. It also forbids meetings meant to excite or prepare for disorder.<\/p>\n The rapidly evolving crisis deepened the turmoil and violence that has gripped Haiti for months, threatening to tip one of the world\u2019s most troubled nations further into lawlessness. Questions swirled about who might have been behind such a brazen attack and how they eluded the president\u2019s security detail to carry it out.<\/p>\n There were reports of fighting between suspects and security forces throughout the day. Earlier Thursday, Helen La Lime, the top U.N. official in Haiti, told reporters that a group of suspects had \u201ctaken refuge in two buildings in the city and are now surrounded by police.\u201d She spoke via teleconference from Port-au-Prince, after briefing the United Nations Security Council on the Haitian crisis in a private meeting. It was unclear if the situation had been resolved.<\/p>\n Haiti\u2019s ambassador to the United States, Bocchit Edmond, has described the assailants as \u201cwell-trained professionals, killers, commandos.\u201d<\/p>\n On Wednesday, security forces engaged in a chaotic shootout with a group of what they described as suspected assailants, though they offered no evidence linking them to the attack. Officers killed several in the group and took others into custody, authorities said.<\/p>\n Chief Charles said Thursday that five vehicles that might have been used in the attack had been seized and that three of them had been burned by civilians. He said it was impossible for the police to gather evidence from inside the charred vehicles.<\/p>\n Social media was full of reports of civilians parading men with their arms tied behind their backs and men in the back of a police pickup truck.<\/p>\n A large crowd of people gathered in front of the police station in the P\u00e9tionville area of Port-au-Prince on Thursday morning, before Chief Charles spoke, some demanding vigilante justice for the suspects they believed to be inside. \u201cBurn them,\u201d some cried.<\/p>\n Carl Henry Destin, a Haitian justice of the peace, said the president\u2019s home had been peppered with holes and littered with bullet casings, and he had found the body of the president lying on the floor at the foot of his bed, \u201cbathed in blood.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere were 12 holes visible in the body of the president that I could see,\u201d he told The New York Times. \u201cHe was riddled with bullets.\u201d<\/p>\n President Mo\u00efse had been dressed in a white shirt and jeans, he said, both of which were torn and covered in blood. Bullet holes perforated his arms, hip, backside and left ear.<\/p>\n There was evidence of different caliber weapons being used, he said.<\/p>\n The president\u2019s house had been ransacked, said Mr. Destin. \u201cDrawers were pulled out, papers were all over the ground, bags were open,\u201d he said. Two servants had been tied up, he said.<\/p>\n The president\u2019s wife, Martine Mo\u00efse, was injured in the assault and was rushed by air ambulance to the Ryder Trauma Center in Miami, where Mr. Joseph, the interim prime minister, said she was \u201cout of danger\u201d and in stable condition. Representative Frederica Wilson of Florida said\u00a0at a news conference in Miami<\/a>\u00a0that Ms. Mo\u00efse was not the target of the attack and that, according to the U.S. State Department, \u201cshe was caught in a crossfire.\u201d<\/p>\n Ms. Wilson said the couple\u2019s three children are in protective custody. Mr. Destin said that two of the children had been present during the attack, and that they had hidden together in a bathroom.<\/p>\n Andre Paulte and Harold Isaac contributed.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n