10 American missionaries in jail in Haiti for child abduction

posted on: Feb 5 2010 8:50 by Royston. Viewed 64 times.


Ten Americans arrested in Haiti while trying to leave the country with 33 children were charged with abduction, a lawyer said Thursday.

 Edwin Coq said after a court hearing on Thursday that the Americans also were charged with conspiracy.

The Americans, Baptist missionaries from a church in Idaho, were transferred from the closed court to a prison in Port-au-Prince. The group’s leader,  Laura Silsby, waved and smiled to reporters but declined to answer questions as she was taken back to the cells they have been in since Saturday. Before the hearing, Silsby had expressed optimism "We expect God's will be done. And we will be released," she told reporters.

Coq said that under the Haitian legal system there will be a trial open to the public, but a judge will weigh up the evidence. The verdict could take about three months, he said.

The attorney said Laura Silsby knew the group couldn't remove the youngsters without proper paperwork, while he claimed the other nine missionaries were unknowingly being caught up in events they didn't understand.

After the hearing Coq said "I'm going to do everything I can to get the nine out. They were naive. They had no idea what was going on and they did not know that they needed official papers to cross the border. But Silsby did."

U.S. Ambassador Kenneth Merten arrived after 5 p.m. outside judicial police headquarters, where the defendants are being held.

"The U.S. justice system cannot interfere in what's going on with these Americans right now," Merten told reporters. "The Haitian justice system will do what it has to do."

Silsby started planning last summer to create an orphanage for Haitian children in the neighbouring Dominican Republic. When the earthquake struck she recruited other church members, and the 10 spent a week in Haiti collecting children for their project.
Most of the children came from the destroyed village of Callebas, where people said they had handed over their children because they were unable to feed or clothe them after the quake. They said the missionaries promised to educate the children and let relatives visit.

Their stories contradicted Silsby's account that the children came from collapsed orphanages or were handed over by distant relatives.

The Dominican consul in Haiti, Carlos Castillo, said  Silsby visited him and said se had a document from Dominican migration officials authorizing her to take the children from Haiti.

Castillo said he warned Silsby very specifically that if she lacked adoption papers signed by the appropriate Haitian officials her mission would be considered child trafficking.

Each defendant is charged with one count of kidnapping, which carries a sentence of five to fifteen years in prison, and one of criminal association, punishable by three to nine years.