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At no time did anyone discuss, much less plan, a coup or an assassination, Mr. Duverger stressed. “I would have stopped attending if anyone mentioned a coup, let alone murder.”

To the contrary, he added, the expectation at the meetings was that President Moïse — who had faced months of blistering street protests demanding his removal — would eventually have no choice but to step down. Mr. Duverger, 70, described the meetings as cabinet-style sessions intended to help Mr. Sanon form a potential transition government once that happened.

Mr. Duverger said he believed Mr. Sanon was innocent. But as for his claims to be a prime minister in waiting, he added: “I keep asking myself, there must be something wrong with me for being so naïve. I believed him. I believed that, because I believed a new transitional government was needed in Haiti.”

Among the participants in the meetings, Mr. Duverger said, were at least two other key suspects who have since been identified by Haitian officials as central figures in the plot. One was Antonio Intriago, who owns the private security and equipment company that hired the former Colombian commandos and brought them to Haiti.

The other was Walter Veintemilla, who leads a small financial services company in Miramar, Fla, called Worldwide Capital Lending Group. On Wednesday, the Haitian authorities accused him of helping to finance the assassination plot.

Haitian officials are investigating whether the president’s own protection force took part in it as well, and on Thursday the head of palace security for Mr. Moïse was taken into police custody. Colombian officials say he made frequent stopovers in Colombia on his way to other countries in the months before the assassination.

Neither Mr. Intriago nor Mr. Veintemilla, both based in Florida, responded to repeated requests for comment through their businesses and relatives. Their whereabouts, and whether the Haitians have sought to charge them with any crimes, is unknown. But Haitian and Colombian officials say that in late May, after some of the former Colombian soldiers hired by Mr. Intriago arrived in Haiti, he and Mr. Veintemilla met in the neighboring Dominican Republic with Mr. Sanon.