The body of a 22-year-old woman was found Thursday in a wooded area at the University of Georgia in Athens, sending shockwaves through Clarke County, a community about 70 miles (110 kilometers) east of Atlanta.

When authorities revealed that the man accused of the murder was an immigrant from Venezuela, the crime became a political flashpoint.

The victim, Laken Riley, was a nursing student at nearby Augusta University. On Friday, Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, was charged with murder. The two did not know each other, authorities said.

Many questions remain about the killing, believed to be the first on campus in nearly thirty years. Here’s what we know.

The victim

Mrs. Riley was once a student at the University of Georgia.

Ms. Riley was a student at the school until the spring of 2023. She then enrolled in the nursing program at Augusta University, which has a campus in Athens. school officials said. She attended Augusta University dean’s list autumn 2023.

In posts on Instagram, Ms. Riley’s friends described her as a wonderful friend, student and roommate, who loved running, dancing and singing, and who had an infectious laugh.

Bianca Tiller, Ms. Riley’s freshman roommate, said Ms. Riley “lit up every room she walked into and put a smile on everyone’s face.”

Mrs. Riley was also an accomplished runner. She attended high school in Cherokee County and was on the River Ridge High School cross country team. She competed several times in the Georgia High School Association State Cross-Country Finals, her former coach, Keith Hooper, said in a statement, adding that Ms. Riley “was a selfless individual.”

The suspect

Mr. Ibarra lived in Athens and was from Venezuela.

Mr. Ibarra lived in an apartment complex about a mile from the wooded path where Ms. Riley’s body was found, said Jeffrey Clark, chief of the university police.

Mr. Ibarra migrated to the United States from Venezuela, authorities said. He was arrested by the Border Patrol in September 2022 for crossing the border illegally and was quickly released with temporary permission to remain in the country, according to federal officials.

That release, or parole, was a practice the government used when officials were overwhelmed by large numbers of people crossing. About six months later, that practice ended.

It appears that Mr. Ibarra also spent some time in New York City. He was arrested by New York police in August and subsequently released, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. A law enforcement official in New York said Mr. Ibarra had been riding a scooter without a license and with a child who was not wearing a helmet.

Mr. Ibarra was denied bond during a hearing on Saturday and remained in jail, authorities said.

The murder

Mrs Riley went missing after going for a run.

Shortly after noon Thursday, a friend reported to campus police that Ms. Riley was missing after she failed to return from a run around the university’s intramural fields, according to university police.

At 12:38 p.m., officers found her body in a patch of woods near a lake. Ms. Riley “was unconscious and not breathing” and had “visible injuries,” police said.

Chief Clark said Friday that she died of “blunt force trauma.”

According to arrest affidavits filed in Athens-Clarke County Superior Court, Mr. Ibarra is accused of using an object to assault Ms. Riley. and dragging her body to a remote area.

The charges against Mr. Ibarra include murder, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, kidnapping, obstructing a 911 call and concealing the death of another, Chief Clark said. Asked about a motive, he said: “This was just a crime of opportunity.”

Mr. Ibarra appeared to have acted alone, authorities said.

Politics

The killing has sparked disputes over immigration policy.

Many conservative politicians, including Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, a native of Athens, have done so linked the assassination of President Biden’s immigration policies. They argue that the policy has flooded the country with more migrants than the system can handle.

In a social media post, former President Donald J. Trump called Mr. Ibarra a “monster” and accused Mr. Biden of an “invasion” that is “killing our citizens.”

Such statements have struck many liberals as demagogic rhetoric. Kelly Girtz, the Democratic mayor of Athens-Clarke County, said the conversation should focus on mourning the victim and on blaming an individual rather than a group.

“This murder was a violent, heinous act,” he said, “and rests squarely on the shoulders of the perpetrator.”

More than six million Venezuelans have fled their troubled country in the past decade, the largest displacement in Latin America’s modern history.

At the apartment complex listed as Mr. Ibarra’s address, a resident, Manuel Alcides, 26, said many Venezuelan migrants lived in the building. Mr. Alcides, who is also from Venezuela, said he did not know Mr. Ibarra.

“It is a danger to our community because society will look at this mistake and think the rest of us could be a threat,” Mr Alcides said. “But we are not all the same.”

Reporting was contributed by Richard Fausset, Adeel Hassan, Chelsia Rose Marcius And Alessandro Marazzi Sassoon.

It was a mild Sunday evening in Surrey, a city near Vancouver, British Columbia, and Hardeep Singh Nijjar was ready to drive home after spending the day at his Sikh temple. He told a friend he thought he was being followed, but that night he just wanted to celebrate Father’s Day with his family.

Mr. Nijjar was driving his truck out of the parking lot when he was ambushed. Two masked gunmen unleashed a burst of gunfire and then fled in a getaway car. Mr. Nijjar was dead.

The murder on that day in June became part of a series of events that would ricochet around the world, with federal agents in the United States working furiously behind the scenes to unravel an international murder plot they believed was orchestrated by someone within the Indian government. The geopolitical implications were enormous, and the clock was ticking: the next assassination planned was of someone on American soil.

That explosive tip had reached the Drug Enforcement Administration through an unexpected route, according to court records and interviews with people familiar with the investigation — accounts that, taken together, provide a detailed picture of how the episode unfolded.

What followed was an elaborate sting operation involving an undercover DEA agent posing as a hit man and a stack of $15,000 in cash bills, overseen by an extensive team of investigators who had access to private text messages between Indian nationals living in India .

This week, federal prosecutors in Manhattan unsealed charges against Nikhil Gupta, a native of India accused of masterminding the murder plot in the United States. Officials say the plot targeted a prominent American Sikh activist living in New York City who was a longtime colleague of Mr. Nijjar, also an outspoken Sikh leader.

Mr. Gupta was arrested in the Czech Republic on June 30 and is awaiting extradition to the United States, a spokesman for the Czech Justice Ministry said. Mr. Gupta’s lawyer did not respond to requests for comment.

In a vaguely worded response to the allegations, a spokesperson for India’s Foreign Ministry said the Indian government had opened an investigation on November 18 after hearing from the United States about “organized criminals, arms smugglers, terrorists and others.” The Indian government has denied any involvement in Mr Nijjar’s killing in Canada.

Before the murder plot came into the public eye, Mr. Gupta was already a household name among some law enforcement officials in the United States, suspected of taking part in the sale of heroin and cocaine, according to a person familiar with the investigation. In conversations recorded by prosecutors, he had discussed his involvement in the international drug and arms trade.

But when Mr. Gupta called one of his colleagues in the drug trade in late May, he was looking for something completely different.

Mr. Gupta asked the man if he happened to know anyone who could be hired to carry out a murder in the United States.

What Mr. Gupta didn’t realize was that the drug trafficker was actually an informant working for the DEA

The DEA had used the informant in another Colombian drug trafficking case. But Mr. Gupta’s efforts took the investigation in a new direction, people familiar with the investigation said.

Mr. Gupta became involved in the plot a few weeks earlier, according to prosecutors, after an Indian government official recruited him to arrange an assassination attempt in New York. Prosecutors said the official, who was not named in the indictment, described working in a government job responsible for intelligence and security management.

The suspected target was Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, an outspoken supporter of a Sikh independence movement that India has long seen as a threat. Like Mr. Nijjar, he pushed for a sovereign state carved out of India for his religious minority group, a dispute rooted in decades of history. It was not clear whether the official in the case acted alone or with the blessing of others in the Indian government.

To win Mr. Gupta’s help, the official promised to resolve a criminal case hanging over him in India, the indictment said. It was not clear what the charges were.

Within a few weeks, the official seemed to make good on the promise. The official assured Mr. Gupta that the matter “has already been resolved” and that “no one will ever bother you again,” according to the complaint. Prosecutors said the official even offered to introduce Mr. Gupta to a deputy police commissioner in India.

With his case dismissed in India, Mr. Gupta moved forward with the scheme, prosecutors said.

After the DEA learned that Mr. Gupta was looking for a hit man, investigators came up with an idea: A DEA agent would go undercover and play the role of a hitman.

The DEA informant introduced Mr. Gupta to the fake assassin and they agreed on a price for the killing: $100,000.

Mr. Pannun, the man in the crosshairs, had been a lawyer for Mr. Nijjar, the murder victim, in Canada. Both men were outspoken critics of India’s leader, Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

In the weeks that followed, the indictment said, Mr. Gupta passed information from the Indian government official to the assassin, including Mr. Pannun’s home address in New York and details of his daily routine. Prosecutors say Mr. Gupta suggested during a video call that the DEA informant could more easily lure Mr. Pannun by pretending to seek legal advice from him.

In early June, the informant asked Mr. Gupta for details about the cash and requested an advance.

The Indian official initially told Mr. Gupta that an upfront fee was impossible and that the full $100,000 payment would be made within 24 hours after the job was completed, the complaint said. But the official eventually relented and named an employee who would help arrange the funds.

On June 9, the hitman met another associate of Mr. Gupta in his car, who showed up with $15,000 in cash. The employee handed over a huge stack of folded $100 bills.

But throughout the planning, the indictment said, there was one key stipulation by the Indian official: the killing could not take place during high-level visits between U.S. and Indian officials in late June, to fit the timeframe in which President Biden would to welcome. Modi to the White House for a state visit.

Given Mr. Pannun’s public profile, Mr. Gupta feared there could be protests and geopolitical fallout if Mr. Pannun were killed in the United States while Mr. Modi was visiting.

In mid-June, Mr. Gupta told the DEA informant in a phone call that there was also a “major target” in Canada.

It is not clear whether U.S. officials alerted Canadian officials. But six days later, on June 18, Mr. Nijjar was murdered outside his temple.

Hours after the killing, the indictment said, the Indian government official sent a video of Mr. Nijjar’s bloodied body slumped in his car to Mr. Gupta, who passed the video on to his associates in New York. Mr. Gupta confirmed to the DEA informant that Mr. Nijjar was the Canadian target he had previously mentioned.

Mr. Gupta told the Indian official that he wished he had personally carried out Mr. Nijjar’s killing and asked permission to “go to the field,” according to the indictment. The official told him to lay low and said it was best to stay behind.

Their plan to be cautious around Mr. Modi’s visit flew out the window. Two days after Mr. Nijjar’s killing, the Indian official, according to the indictment, sent Mr. Gupta a news article about Mr. Pannun, saying it was now a “priority.”

Mr. Gupta relayed the message to the man he thought would pull the trigger. Mr Gupta said there is now “no need to wait” to kill Mr Pannun, adding: “We have so many targets.” He said Mr Nijjar was No. 3 or No. 4 on the list.

If Mr. Pannun was in a meeting with others, “put everyone down,” Mr. Gupta said, according to the complaint.

The pressure mounted and Mr. Gupta panicked. He demanded regular updates from his New York employees. Mr. Gupta said they had to complete four jobs by June 29, including three people in Canada.

The Indian official kept a close eye on the progress of the operation. In late June, the official messaged Mr. Gupta to say that Mr. Pannun was not home — intelligence, the official said, that came from an unnamed “boss,” according to the indictment.

On June 29, Mr. Gupta learned that Mr. Pannun was finally at his home and told the hitman to commit the murder, prosecutors said. Mr. Gupta urged him to try “to get this done when you have the footage and when you are sure.”

But there had never been an assassin before. The plot that prosecutors say had haunted Gupta for more than a month could go no further.

The next day, Mr. Gupta flew from India to the Czech Republic for unclear reasons.

As soon as he arrived, he was arrested by the Czech police, who were waiting for him at the request of the American authorities.

A spokesperson for the Czech Justice Ministry said a decision on Mr. Gupta’s extradition would be made in the coming weeks.

After the case became public this week, Mr. Pannun said in an interview that he was not surprised by the plot against him and vowed to remain committed to his activist efforts.

“I am not afraid of physical death,” Mr. Pannun said. “We live in the home of the brave and the land of the free in America.”

Julian E. Barnes, Kim Barker, Jesse McKinley, Barbora Petrova and Ian Austen contributed reporting.

Gurpatwant Singh Pannun has no doubts about who wants him dead.

“The conspiracy and plot to kill me comes from the government of India,” he said in an interview.

Mr Pannun is a Sikh separatist who envisions an independent Punjab, the northern Indian state where his religious minority group is dominant. His claim that India is out to get him was given credence by a federal indictment unsealed Wednesday charging an Indian national, Nikhil Gupta, with a murder-for-hire plot ordered by an official within the national government . The accusation immediately put a damper on American-Indian relations.

Mr. Pannun is a 56-year-old American and Canadian citizen who has lived in New York City for almost thirty years. He was not named in the indictment, but U.S. officials confirmed Wednesday that he was the intended victim.

Mr. Pannun, general counsel of a New York-based group called Sikhs for Justice, which seeks independence for Punjab, said he was not surprised by the assassination plot against him. The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the country’s conservative Hindu leader, has a history of using violence to suppress criticism, he said.

“The indictment against Nikhil Gupta, I see it as an indictment against Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” he said on Wednesday evening.

The indictment against Mr. Gupta comes as the United States is courting India as an international counterweight to Russia and China, including through expanded defense and trade ties. Attempts to reach the Indian embassy for comment were not immediately successful Thursday.

Without mentioning Mr. Gupta’s name, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs issued a statement suggested on Wednesday that it had cooperated with a US investigation into the plot, noting that “during the talks with the US on bilateral security cooperation, the US side shared some input regarding the nexus between organized criminals, arms smugglers, terrorists and others.”

According to the indictment, Mr. Gupta, who lives in India, had bragged about his involvement in “international drug and arms trafficking” to an unnamed Indian official with a background in “security management” and intelligence. That official instructed Mr. Gupta to find a hit man in the United States to kill Mr. Pannun, although that effort backfired, with the person approaching Mr. Gupta with an offer of $100,000 to kill Mr. Pannun was an American undercover agent.

The New York plot took place around the same time that a masked gunman killed another Sikh separatist, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, in British Columbia, just across the U.S. border. That killing prompted an angry response from the Canadian government, including from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who described it as “an unacceptable violation” of his country’s sovereignty. US officials had helped their Canadian counterparts link India to that killing.

Mr. Nijjar, who was the president of a Sikh temple in British Columbia, and Mr. Pannun had known each other for more than a decade. Shortly after Mr. Nijjar’s murder, Mr. Gupta, according to the indictment, told the undercover agent that “we have so many targets” and urged the ersatz killer to act quickly; the Indian government agent also sent Mr. Gupta a video clip of Mr. Nijjar’s body slumped in his car.

Mr. Gupta was arrested in the Czech Republic shortly afterwards; It is not clear where he is currently being held. A phone call and email to an attorney representing him were not immediately returned.

Mr. Pannun, who lives in Queens and has law offices there and in California, says the Indian government has tried to label Sikh separatists as “terrorists” as they have tried to establish a sovereign nation known as Khalistan.

“If Modi says I am a terrorist, the whole world will stand up and start shooting and killing,” he said. “This is what they expected.”

Mr. Pannun has regularly posted outraged tirades against the Indian government and its officials online. But while India’s Sikh separatists resorted to violence in the 1980s, Mr. Pannun, like Mr. Nijjar, was not involved in terrorist activities and pursued an independent state through democratic means, according to people briefed on the couple’s activities. .

Few within India support Punjab’s secession, but Modi has used sectarian divisions to boost his fortunes. Before the last elections, in 2019, he took advantage of violent Islamic militancy from Pakistan to create a political wave.

The strengthening of a perceived Sikh separatist threat could give a boost to Mr Modi and his allies ahead of national elections early next year, and India has claimed Sikh extremists are plotting violence in Punjab.

Mr. Pannun said he did not know Mr. Gupta, nor did he know the Indian official who tried to arrange his killing. But he said tensions between the Indian government and Sikhs in Punjab were decades old.

“It’s news for America, it’s news for Canada,” he said. “But for the people leading these movements and campaigns for the right to self-determination, this is not a surprise to us.”

Mr. Pannun still seems wary; he declined to say whether he is married or has children. He also does not want to say when he was informed of the murder plan, even though media were present The Financial Times reported this month that the Biden administration had told the Indian government it had information about New Delhi’s involvement in the plot against Mr. Pannun.

“We are treating this matter with the utmost seriousness, and the issue has been raised by the US government with the Indian government, including at the highest levels,” the White House National Security Council said in a statement last week.

Mr Pannun says he remains committed to both his efforts on behalf of Sikhs and his religious beliefs.

“I am not afraid of physical death,” Mr. Pannun said. “We live in the home of the brave and the land of the free in America. We are not afraid of death. Because killing me will not stop the Khalistan freedom movement.”

Julian Barnes And Mujib Mashal reporting contributed.

On a rainy evening in June, President Biden toasted President Narendra Modi of India at a state dinner at the White House, honoring “two great friends and two great powers” — a gesture of flattery for a leader he enabled to help the United States. States check China’s ambition and counter Russia’s aggression.

According to the White House, the president had no idea that a major test of that relationship was unfolding, even during the state visit.

On June 22, as Mr. Biden was pulling out all the stops diplomatically to bring Mr. Modi closer, a senior official in the Indian government offered a “green light” to clear the assassination plot surrounding a Sikh American on the U.S. border approve. bottom, according to a Justice Department complaint filed Wednesday in a federal court in New York.

There was one mistake: The hitman turned out to be an undercover law enforcement officer, prosecutors said, and the plot was foiled. The suspect, an Indian national accused of arranging the murder, was arrested in the Czech Republic on June 30, eight days after the state dinner.

According to several American officials, the United States has no information that Mr. Modi was aware of the alleged plot. But the bold plan illustrates how complicated it can be for U.S. presidents to balance their relationships with deeply imperfect allies while trying to maintain their commitment to the values ​​of human rights and democracy.

Mr. Biden’s advisers and analysts say the relationship between the two countries remains as strong as it was that June evening, driven by Mr. Modi’s desire to assert his country as an economic superpower and the need of the Mr Biden to a powerful ally to serve. as a counterweight to Russia and China.

“India remains a strategic partner, and we will continue to work to enhance and strengthen that strategic partnership with India,” John F. Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, told reporters Thursday. But, he added, “it has become clear to us that we want everyone, everyone responsible for these alleged crimes to be held accountable.”

After the White House was informed of the alleged assassination plot in July, some officials expressed surprise and even disbelief that India would risk upsetting warming relations with such a brazen plan, U.S. officials said. Some White House advisers expressed personal regret that the invitation for a state visit had been extended at all, officials said.

But publicly the episode has not caused a rift. As Mr. Biden has worked to build a network of global alliances to confront adversaries, he has sometimes softened differences and raised difficult issues privately rather than making them public.

His advisers say he did that by meeting with Mr. Modi at the Group of 20 in India in September, where he emphasized how seriously the United States was taking the allegations, according to a senior U.S. official who was not authorized to detail the conversation to describe.

Mr. Biden also has a keep-the-close strategy with Israel. His aides say the president’s public solidarity with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks has allowed him to use his influence privately on issues such as humanitarian aid.

Whether the strategy will work in the long term remains to be seen. But Mr. Biden’s clear preference is to keep friends closer and use positive reinforcement in an effort to change their policies.

“We take these allegations in this investigation very seriously,” Mr. Kirby said on Thursday. “And we’re happy to see that the Indians are too.”

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland has often said he does not discuss ongoing investigations with White House officials, usually in response to questions about the Justice Department’s charges against his son Hunter Biden and former President Donald J. Trump.

But criminal investigations of foreigners that have foreign policy implications may be a different matter. Department officials routinely report major investigations to the State Department, members of the intelligence community and even the National Security Council if they could affect international relations, according to current and former law enforcement officials. Then, high-profile gatekeepers, including the national security adviser and chief of staff, decide when and if to brief the president.

The federal prosecution of indicted Indian man Nikhil Gupta began as a relatively routine drug trafficking investigation, federal law enforcement officials said. In late July, about a month after Mr. Gupta’s arrest, the president’s advisers were informed when it became clear that the case was not only a criminal investigation but also involved the Indian government, according to a person familiar with the research.

In early August, Mr. Biden had sent top aides to New Delhi, officials said.

According to U.S. officials, Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence, traveled to India in October to detail much of the material the government made public in Wednesday’s indictment. In the days that followed, Indian officials assured Washington that they would begin their own investigation.

In recent months, a parade of American officials — including Ms. Haines, William J. Burns, the CIA director, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Mr. Biden himself — have confronted India with the message that Washington would not tolerate assassination attempts. throughout North America.

U.S. officials say they do not know whether higher levels of the Indian government were involved in the alleged plot. Intelligence agencies continue to try to gather information, but U.S. officials said much will depend on the Indian government’s cooperation.

Mr. Biden has worked to stabilize relations with leaders of authoritarian regimes, most recently when he met with President Xi Jinping of China in San Francisco two weeks ago.

As a candidate, Mr Biden pledged to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” over a host of human rights abuses and the killing and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi, a US resident who was critical of the Saudi government in columns he wrote for The WashingtonPost. .

In the years since, Mr. Biden has visited Saudi Arabia and shared a fist bump with Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s crown prince. He has changed his position in pursuing long-term bids to lower oil prices and build a relationship between Israel and the Saudis.

Nirav Patel, the CEO of the Asia Group and deputy assistant secretary of state under President Barack Obama, said in an interview that “there is a realpolitik orientation to the way that not only this administration, but previous administrations have tried to to manage disagreements. .”

Officials have argued that the work to bring Mr. Modi into the diplomatic fold has helped American officials work with Indian counterparts as the investigation continues.

It has been a different approach from that of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, whose country is home to the largest population of Sikhs outside India. Relations between the two countries changed after Mr Trudeau accused the Indian government of involvement in the killing of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on June 18 in Surrey, British Columbia.

Mr. Nijjar was an outspoken supporter of independence for Punjab, a northern Indian state home to a large number of Sikhs. That included Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who U.S. officials said was the intended victim in the case revealed this week.

Modi’s government has pushed for the extradition of 26 Sikh separatists, saying they could pose an extremist threat. The indictment unsealed on Wednesday said Mr. Gupta told an associate that three other murders were planned in Canada, in addition to the plan to kill Mr. Pannun in New York.

Ed Shanahan reporting contributed.

For the second time in recent months, the Indian government is facing questions over whether it was involved in an assassination plot on Western soil, as US officials said they raised concerns in New Delhi about a foiled plan to to murder dual US-Canadian citizens. .

US officials have not publicly accused India of orchestrating the killing of the dual citizen, who news media say is Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, an outspoken advocate of the cause of Sikh separatism.

But the revelation of a foiled plot comes just months after Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused the Indian government of involvement in the killing of another Sikh separatist, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, on Canadian soil. And in the case of Mr. Pannun, news media, led by The Financial Timesreported on Wednesday that the Biden administration had told the Indian government that it had information potentially linking New Delhi to the plot against him.

In response to these reports, which quoted unnamed US officials, India’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a vaguely worded statement acknowledging discussions with the United States on the issue.

“The US side shared a number of inputs regarding the relationship between organized criminals, arms smugglers, terrorists and others. The input is of concern to both countries and they have decided to take necessary follow-up measures,” the statement said.

In its own statement, the White House National Security Council said on Wednesday: “We are treating this matter with the utmost seriousness, and the US government has raised this issue with the Indian government, including at the highest levels. Indian colleagues expressed their surprise and concern. They stated that this type of activity was not their policy.”

When Trudeau, the Canadian leader, made his accusation in September, it took the already testy relations between India and Canada to a new low and prompted a series of retaliatory actions, including the expulsion of diplomats.

U.S. officials, on the other hand, privately expressed concern about the Pannun case and emphasized the importance the Biden administration places on its growing relations with India.

The two countries have expanded defense and trade ties, with a steady stream of senior US officials visiting the Indian capital in recent months as the United States seeks to counter China’s influence in the region.

But if India were involved in a plot within the United States, it would represent a bold breach of a powerful democratic ally and would raise questions about New Delhi’s reliability as a partner that emerged after Mr. Trudeau’s accusation. came, intensified.

India’s response to US concerns about the plot, as described by the National Security Council, appeared broadly in line with New Delhi’s earlier defense against Canada’s accusation of involvement in an extrajudicial killing on foreign soil.

India’s then top diplomat publicly rejected the claim that such actions were not the policy of the Indian government. Privately, officials said they were wrongly involved in what were essentially turf wars and intergroup rivalries between Sikh separatist elements.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s right-wing supporters, as well as the highly sympathetic Indian broadcast media, took a two-pronged approach. They expressed outrage at the Canadian accusation, while insinuating that Mr Nijjar, the slain Sikh, deserved to be killed and that his death showed the long arm of a strengthened India under Mr Modi.

Relations between India and Canada remain frosty, and Canadian officials have yet to provide any evidence to back up their claims of Indian involvement in Mr Nijjar’s death. But some retaliatory measures have been reversed, with Indian officials saying on Wednesday that e-visa services for Canadian citizens have resumed.

Mr. Pannun, a lawyer involved with the organization Sikhs for Justice, which is banned in India, has a history of violent statements against Indian officials. In recent weeks he made a veiled threat against Air India, prompting flashbacks to a terrorist attack by Sikh separatists that killed more than 300 people on one of the airline’s flights.

India, which issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Pannun last year, has filed several lawsuits accusing him of terrorism. This week, a new case was filed against him following his comments about Air India.

“Pannun’s claims and threats have triggered high alert and investigations by security forces in Canada, India and certain other countries where Air India flies,” India’s National Bureau of Investigation said in a statement after filing the case.

A senior Haitian police official was recently shopping at his local supermarket when someone caught his attention: the country’s most wanted man.

The official, Ernst Dorfeuille, immediately recognized Joseph Félix Badio, a former military officer who had focused on drug and corruption cases at the Ministries of the Interior and Justice, as having once worked with him.

Now Mr. Badio was a fugitive, the target of a warrant to question him about the key role police say he played in a notorious crime: the July 2021 assassination of Haiti’s president Jovenel Moïse.

Mr. Dorfeuille called for help and within minutes four police officers armed with assault rifles arrived and detained Mr. Badio as he was about to drive away from the supermarket outside Haiti’s capital.

Mr. Dorfeuille confirmed to The Times details of Mr. Badio’s arrest that have appeared in the Haitian news media, but declined a fuller interview.

How Mr. Badio, who was accused by some of the men involved in the assassination plot of ordering Mr. Moïse’s killing, managed to evade Haitian authorities for more than two years remains unclear.

When he was apprehended, Mr. Badio was driving a vehicle registered to a Justice Department employee, according to police.

His arrest sparked reactions of joyful surprise among many Haitians, who have grown cynical in a country where corruption and impunity are often the norm.

Pierre Espérance, executive director of a leading Haitian human rights organization, said Mr. Badio’s apparently accidental arrest raised questions about how aggressively the search for him was being conducted.

“He was untouchable because he knew too much,” Mr. Espérance said.

Mr Moïse was shot in his bedroom in the early hours of July 7, 2021, after police said his official residence was attacked by a team of 20 Colombian former soldiers hired by a Miami-area security firm.

There are two parallel investigations into the murder in Haiti and South Florida. Dozens of people are imprisoned in Haiti, but no one has been charged so far.

In Miami, 11 people were charged in federal court in February for their roles in the conspiracy. Three have pleaded guilty, including one of the Colombians, Germán Rivera, who was given a life sentence last month. All three were charged with conspiracy to kidnap and murder someone outside the United States.

Mr. Badio, described in a detailed Haitian police report as the “orchestra leader” of the plot, has not been charged in the killing. In Haiti, official charges often come much later in the legal process.

Haitian police said Mr. Badio rented two vehicles transporting the president’s killers as well as a house on the same street as Mr. Moïse’s residence to conduct surveillance.

After his arrest, Mr. Badio briefly appeared before a judge and was then transferred to Haiti’s main prison. Jonas Mezilus, a lawyer representing Mr. Badio, said that because his client had not been formally charged, he did not know how he would plead.

A year ago, Mr. Badio issued an audio statement to a Haitian news media proclaiming his innocence, saying he was being made a “scapegoat” for Mr. Moïse’s murder and that he was willing to talk to authorities, including the FBI.

“I’m available today,” he said. “I am a slave to the law.”

US court documents filed as part of the South Florida indictment point to an unnamed “co-conspirator” who ordered the president’s assassination.

Some attorneys representing suspects charged in South Florida believe Mr. Badio is the co-conspirator and could ultimately face criminal charges in the United States as well. A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on Mr. Badio’s status.

Given that Mr. Badio was never questioned about Mr. Moïse’s murder, legal experts say he can provide vital answers to a case still shrouded in mystery.

U.S. prosecutors allege that the owners of the Miami-area security firm Counter Terrorist Unit planned and financed the killing in an effort to profit from lucrative contracts under a new administration. But they have left open the question of whether there were other masterminds in Haiti and what role they may have played in the plot.

Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry has praised Mr Badio’s arrest. “This is a major step forward in the investigation,” he said in a statement.

But Mr. Henry himself has been linked to the killing by Haitian authorities, who say phone records show that Mr. Badio called Mr. Henry several times in the days before and in the hours after Mr. Moïse’s killing.

When a judge in the case last year asked Mr. Henry to answer questions about his relationship with Mr. Badio, he was fired by the justice minister and fled the country. The judge wrote at the time that there were “enough compromising elements” to prosecute Mr. Henry.

Mr Henry has denied any involvement. In response to questions for this article, his spokesman said Mr. Henry had received many phone calls on the day of Mr. Moïse’s murder, “but none to Mr. Badio.”

Mr. Badio is a former Haitian military officer who worked in strategic communications before joining the government. The Times contacted a dozen former and current officials who worked with him, but none would say anything on the record.

His father emigrated to New York in the early 1960s, according to a person who worked with Mr. Badio in the Haitian government, who asked to remain anonymous because he feared for his safety while speaking publicly about Mr. Badio.

The younger Mr. Badio lived briefly in New York and attended Medgar Evers College, part of the City University of New York system, according to his Facebook page. The college confirmed that someone named Joseph Félix Badio studied there from 1992 to 1993, although there was no evidence that he graduated.

He later bought a four-bedroom house in a residential neighborhood in Rockland County, just north of New York City, where his wife and two children still live, according to property and phone records. A Times reporter visited the house, but no one answered the door.

The person who worked with him said Mr. Badio was fascinated by weapons and everything related to security and intelligence. According to several people who had worked with him and followed his career, he also seemed resentful of those in power who did not sufficiently recognize his talents.

“Badio was extremely well connected, not just on the political spectrum, but also in security, at a pretty high level,” said Jake Johnston, a Haiti expert at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington who has researched Mr Badio’s track record.

Referring to Mr. Badio’s superiors in the Haitian government, Mr. Johnston said: “He was also someone that these people relied on to handle things. He had a reputation as someone who was always around to get things done.”

Mr. Espérance, the director of the human rights group, said he met with Mr. Badio 10 years ago. He recalled that Mr. Badio “talked about his relationship with U.S. agencies, the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration, but you never knew if it was fake or not.”

A State Department spokeswoman confirmed that Mr. Badio had attended an anti-gang conference in the United States in 2009.

Two months before Mr. Moïse’s murder, Mr. Badio was fired from a Justice Department anti-corruption unit for taking $30,000 from a jailed man accused of killing a well-known owner of a local radio station, according to a letter from Mr. Badio’s boss at the ministry, as well as a press release from the ministry.

The transcripts, which point to Mr. Badio’s involvement in the plot, are part of the prosecution’s evidence in the South Florida case and have been reviewed by The Times.

In his audio message to the Haitian news channel, Mr. Badio denounced unnamed members of the Haitian government, who he said were also involved in the assassination plot.

“If you think you can get away with executing me,” he said, “you’re knocking on the wrong door.”

Camille Baker contributed reporting from Rockland County, NY, and Harold Isaac from Port-au-Prince, Haiti.