Zeenews Bureau
Port-au-Prince: Ten US Baptist missionaries charged with child kidnapping returned to jail on Friday after failing to persuade a judge to grant them provisional release pending the outcome of their case, their lawyer said.
The weary looking Americans were led one by one into the back of a police van after spending half the day at a courthouse in the rubble-strewn capital. A judge scheduled three more days of hearings next week, starting Monday, defence attorney Edwin Coq told reporters.
Haitian officials at the court declined to answer questions from journalists about the case. The missionaries did not respond to questions and Coq said they had been ordered by the judge not to discuss their case.
The lawyer said that at least nine of the Americans — all but the group`s leader, Laura Silsby — clearly did not know they lacked the proper papers to remove 33 children from Haiti following the devastating earthquake and they should be immediately released.
"They came to Haiti to help. They came in solidarity," he said. "It is scandalous that they are being detained."
Prior to the closed hearing, Coq told reporters he would ask the judge to grant the detainees "provisional release”, a type of bail without money posted. He said they should be allowed to leave Haiti until their trial, a date for which has not been established.
An investigating judge charged the Americans on Thursday with kidnapping for trying to take the 33 children across the border into the Dominican Republic on January 29 without documentation.
Coq says Silsby knew she couldn`t take the youngsters without proper paperwork. But he characterised the other nine missionaries as innocents caught up in actions they didn`t understand.
The Baptist group, most of whose members are from two Idaho churches, insisted they were rescuing abandoned children and orphans after the January 12 quake.
But at least 22 of the children, ranging in age from 2 to 12, have parents. Some of the parents said they gave them up willingly because the missionaries promised the children a better life.
Each of the missionaries is charged with one count of kidnapping, which carries a sentence of five to 15 years in prison, and one of criminal association, punishable by three to nine years. Coq said the case was assigned a judge and a verdict could take three months.
"Obviously this is a matter for the Haitian judicial system," US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Friday.
Former US president Bill Clinton, now a special UN envoy to Haiti, met with President Rene Preval in Port-au-Prince on Friday, but said his visit had nothing to do with the detained Americans.
Later, Bill Clinton said the US and Haitian governments should try to resolve the issue quickly.
"I think what`s important now is that the government of Haiti and the government of the United States to get together and go through this because the government of Haiti, as I understand it, is not looking for a fight. They just want to protect children," he said during a visit to an AIDS clinic.
"The only thing I ask is both sides try to work through it as soon as possible."
Bill Clinton meets angry Haitians
Former US president Bill Clinton was met by angry crowds protesting the slow arrival of aid to quake-ravaged Haiti as he arrived here for his second visit since the disaster.
"Our children are burning in the sun. We have a right to tents. We have a right to shelter," said Mentor Natacha, 30, a mother of two.
As Bill Clinton entered the police building which has become the government`s de facto headquarters in the ruined capital Port-au-Prince, about 200 people from a northern neighbourhood demonstrated outside at the lack of shelter.
His arrival comes amid persistent problems in getting aid to the estimated one million Haitians left homeless after the January 12 quake which levelled much of the capital Port-au-Prince and surrounding towns.
(With Agencies’ inputs)
