PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Ten U.S. Baptist missionaries were charged with kidnapping Thursday for trying to take 33 children out of Haiti to a hastily arranged refuge just as officials were trying to protect children from predators in the chaos of a great earthquake.
The Haitian lawyer who represents the 10 Americans portrayed nine of his clients as innocents caught up in a scheme they did not understand. But attorney Edwin Coq did not defend the actions of the group leader, Laura Silsby, though he continued to represent her.
"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," Coq said. "But Silsby did."
Family members of the Americans released a statement late Thursday saying they were concerned about their relatives jailed in a foreign country.
"Obviously, we do not know details about what happened and didn't happen on this mission," the statement said. "However, we are absolutely convinced that those who were recruited to join this mission traveled to Haiti to help, not hurt, these children."
The Americans, most members of two Idaho churches, said they were rescuing abandoned children and orphans from a nation that UNICEF says had 380,000 even before the catastrophic Jan. 12 quake.
But at least two-thirds of the children, who range in age from 2 to 12, have parents who gave them away because they said the Americans promised the children a better life.
The investigating judge, who interviewed the missionaries Tuesday and Wednesday, found sufficient evidence to charge them for trying to take the children across the border into the Dominican Republic on Jan. 29 without documentation, Coq said.
Each was 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 would be assigned a judge and a verdict could take three months.
The magistrate, Mazard Fortil, left without making a statement. Social Affairs Minister Jeanne Bernard Pierre, who has harshly criticized the missionaries, refused to comment. The government's communications minister, Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue, said only that the next court date had not been set.
U.S. Ambassador Kenneth Merten showed up after 5 p.m. outside judicial police headquarters, where the Americans are being held and where President Rene Preval and top ministers now have temporary offices because theirs were destroyed in the quake.
"The U.S. justice system cannot interfere in what's going on with these Americans right now," he told reporters. "The Haitian justice system will do what it has to do."
U.S. consular officials have been making regular visits to the missionaries.
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the Americans' behavior "unfortunate whatever the motivation."
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the U.S. was open to discuss "other legal avenues" for the defendants, an apparent reference to the Haitian prime minister's earlier suggestion that Haiti could consider sending the Americans back to the United States for prosecution.
It's unlikely the Americans could be tried back home, according to Christopher J. Schmidt, an expert on international child kidnapping law in St. Louis, Mo. U.S. statutes may not even apply, he said, since the children never crossed an international border.
Silsby waved and smiled faintly to reporters but declined to answer questions as the Baptists were whisked away from the closed court hearing back to the holding cells where they have been held since Saturday. People rendered homeless by the quake sat idly under tarps in the parking lot, smoke rising from a cooking fire.
Earlier, Silsby expressed optimism about being released.
"We expect God's will will be done. And we will be released. And we're looking forward to what God is going to do," she told APTN before learning they would be charged.
Coq complained about conditions where the Americans were being held. He said they are sleeping on the floor without blankets and aren't being provided with adequate food. He said he had delivered pizza and sandwiches.
Silsby had begun planning last summer to create an orphanage for Haitian children in the Dominican Republic. When the earthquake struck she recruited other church members to help kick her plans into high gear. The 10 Americans rushed to Haiti and spent a week gathering children for their project.
Most of the children came from the quake-ravaged village of Callebas, where residents told The Associated Press that they handed over their children to the Americans because they were unable to feed or clothe them after the earthquake. 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. She said the Americans believed they had all the paperwork needed — documents she said she obtained in the Dominican Republic — to take the children out of Haiti.
"They are very precious kids that have lost their homes and families and are so deeply in need of, most of all, God's love and his compassion," she told the AP in a jailhouse interview Saturday.
The Dominican consul in Haiti, Carlos Castillo, told the AP on Thursday that the day the Americans departed for the border, Silsby visited him and said he had a document from Dominican migration officials authorizing her to extract the children from Haiti.
Castillo said he warned Silsby that if she lacked adoption papers signed by the appropriate Haitian officials her mission would be considered child trafficking. "We were very specific," he said.
Back home in Idaho, Silsby faces questions about her business practices. As many as nine unpaid wage claims by employees of PersonalShopper.com, the online shopping business she founded and for which she is listed as CEO. One of those claims alleges the company owes the employee more than $22,000.
A Roman Catholic official in the Dominican Republic, meanwhile, told the AP that Silsby had agreed to rent 45 rooms at a former hotel owned by the Church in Cabarete, a northern beach resort.
Silsby agreed to rent the rooms for $7,000 a month and solicited a list of required repairs, said Jose Hidalgo, the real estate agent who brokered the deal.
The assistant pastor of Silsby's church in Meridian, Idaho, Drew Ham, has defended the missionaries, saying they were putting the children's' interests first at a time of chaos.
The Central Valley Baptist Church was locked on Thursday afternoon but lights were on. Signs on the church's front door said "No Entrance. Thank you for your understanding."
The children are being cared for at the Austrian-run SOS Children's Village in Port-au-Prince. An official there, Patricia Vargas, said none of the children who are old enough to talk have said they were orphans.

This was a bizarre story right from the start. I do agree that they needed to be charged to the full extent of the law.

one of the most asinine events of the haiti affair......they had signed permission slips from the parents who gave the children to the missionaries for hopefully a better life.....

Personally and I say this with a torn heart, I'm so damn tired of americans going abroad and adopting children from other nations when there are plenty of children right here in america that desperately need parents, and that goes for those clown a.s.s. celebrities that are buying children abroad as well....yet the truth of the matter is and I was actually told this by Catholic social services, there's so much red tape involved in america, it's easier to adopt abroad...sad huh.

There were absolutely told they needed paperwork from the gov.t of Haiti to get the kids out. Signed paperwork from parents means little if the gov.t doesn't agree.

what government, oh you mean the one that must be paid first....they haven't the time to sign papers too busy lining their pockets.....this is interesting, the corruption within the haiti government, check it out

Found this...no author -

We've already donated "emergency" money to Haiti. It's called the U.S. income tax.
"The tale of U.S. foreign aid to Haiti is maddening, as well-meaning Americans dump more and more money to alleviate suffering, only to see little or no actual improvement in the living conditions on the ground.
Since 1973, the United States has been the worlds largest foreign aid donor to Haiti, which ranks among the worlds poorest countries.
From 1990 to 2005, the U.S. sent $1.46 billion to Haiti in aid from development assistance and children's health, through the Economic Support Fund, the U.S. food program, Peace Corps, and foreign military training (although that was only $4.6 million, with $3 million coming in 1995.) More recently, "In May 2008, the Bush administration announced that it would send an additional $25 million in emergency food aid to Haiti, bringing its total emergency contribution to $45 million... Congress provided $100 million for hurricane relief and reconstruction assistance for Haiti and other Caribbean countries in the FY 2009 continuing appropriations resolution, signed September 2008. Haiti received an estimated $287 million in regular appropriations for FY 2009."" (NRO)
So why hasn't all this aid done any good? Perhaps because Haiti is rated the 3rd most corrupt country in the world.
If past is any precedent, a lot of this $100 million will end up in the Swiss bank accounts of corrupt Haitian politicians. And Haiti will ask us for even more.

and futhermore, since when should government officials tell a parent who they can let adopt their children....oh the woman wasn't a celebrity

Don't you verify references on things? Do you just let random strangers take off with your kids? Wouldn't you want paperwork on a child you were going to adopt, to be sure that the child was up for adoption, and the birth parents weren't going to come back?

Considering there's so much going on with human trafficking in the world, I think one would be far more concerned about stuff like that. People give there kids away all the time for a supposed better life. They sell them and have them kidnapped as well. While I can understand a parent wanting a better life for a child, a written note saying it's okay doesn't mean much. I'd say it was safe to say that those notes were written under duress. I seriously doubt that the parents would give up their kids on your normal everyday time in life.

I think the Baptist group was taking advantage. I still reserve judgement as to why the reason.

Money has nothing to do with it.

point well taken, but did you happen to see the interview the news media did with those parents days after the signing of those papers, they were still adamant about sending their children there for a better life.....it will be interesting to see the outcome of all this, see that is one of the main reasons I think the U.S. should stay the hell out of other countries, because no matter what they try to do they end up being scapegoats....

That I will totally agree on!

And there's plenty of people who want to come to America. I'm not knocking that. But still, there's right ways and wrong ways to go about it.

answer me this then, since there's right and wrong ways to go about it.....

you are aware that Obama pardoned all ILLEGAL haitians from deportation right?, they broke the law and were in this country illegally, at least these missionaries had permission slips to take the children to another country.....will they be pardoned....doubt it.....two wrongs don't make a right, so you send these kids back to an impoverished home and they end up diseased and uneducated, yes that should make everyone happy.

I don't agree with what Obama did. But then my family came here LEGALLY and by the book, and I have issues with those who don't.

I tend to have a harsher view on things. Unfortunately, while it's sad that Haiti is the way it is, there are enough issues here in this country that need to be fixed, that aren't happening, and we keep loading the population in this country up even more. Death and disease is a way of life. We have children wanting and needing to be adopted here, we have people needing health care and education here. Fix US before another country.

Of course, this view could be because my teeth are acting up again due to the weather, from the swelling and fluids, I probably have a small hole running through my sinus cavities and I have no extra money to get in and get it all fixed. Life's a *****! Now where's my tea tree oil, echinacea, and sweet clove oil.

while it's sad that Haiti is the way it is, there are enough issues here in this country that need to be fixed, that aren't happening, and we keep loading the population in this country up even more. Death and disease is a way of life. We have children wanting and needing to be adopted here, we have people needing health care and education here. Fix US before another country.

^exactly and I fully concur, we keep allowing ourselves to be distracted and hoodwinked, lied to and brainwashed into the theory that we must help everyone, and those that we reach out to loathe us in the end and yet they all seem to want to come here, personally I wish my ancestors would have had a trillion kids then we would rule the world and take our country back....but then again, we'd probably end up selling it to china for some whiskey when there are no more buffaloes....lmao

but it saddens me when the seniors who have paved the way for our very existence have to decide whether to eat or take their meds because they can't afford both, but we can give free healthcare abroad....

ugh the sinus thing, must be very painful.......aren't there any clinics where you live? or any medical colleges.

I agree with the seniors. And again, American citizens get screwed over.

Dentists won't do any payment plans, and the dental college up in Dallas basically said it wasn't a life or death emergency, so they won't do anything until it is. So I self-treat as cheaply as I can, and hope it keeps the damage at a minimum. I'm quite frankly worried that if it goes to long it will run the risk of poison to the brain. I had a friend who was a day or two within dying according to the ER doc, as he had the same issue.

that's another thing that pisses me off about this society, we never want to do anything preventive we wait until 30 kids get killed in a school before we put in metal detectors, we send people home from the hospital when they have stomach pains without xrays and then wait for their appendix to burst....we wait til someone is 65 before we let them retire however their job has left them arthritic and crippled and we give them half a.s.s healthcare and a meager social security, but the politicians get lifetime health benefits free and their full pay for the rest of their natural lives, like winning the damn lottery....

see a herbologist, maybe they can help you and I hear accupunture is getting cheaper as well, it does work

Yep yep!

The tea tree oil, echinacea and sweet clove is herbally related, and it does help a lot. It's kept me functioning for 9 months or so, since this started flaring up.

you know what's funny.......you could go to jail and they'd fix you right up, but you live honestly and try to make ends meet and they piss on you.

Truth!

Came here illegally and proud of it

you're such a gangster, adoptable even...lmao

I hope they get at least 10 years each . I'm tried of people who think they are above the laws of any country . and that is for the unclean people who have come here too .

ACtually they were granted TPS,,from the miami herald

TPS is granted to selected immigrants who cannot safely return to their homelands because of natural disasters, armed conflicts or other emergencies. Those eligible are allowed to remain here and obtain work permits and temporary stays for specific periods -- a status often renewed indefinitely.


This would not apply to the americans who went there however. I believe these people went there with good intentions,, as immigrants who sneak in our country do, but they broke laws(rather due to ignorance or defiance) and the penalties apply. It may have been a better effort to work with those children ALREADY in orphanages instead of convincing parents to hand over children who already had families.