PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI -- Eight of 10
U.S. missionaries jailed in Haiti on charges of child abduction have been
released on bail and are back in the United States.
They
were flown out of Haiti in a US military transport plane to Miami, Florida, but
may have to return at a later date pending a continuing
criminal investigation and possibly a trial in Haitian courts.
Two of the missionaries Laura
Silsby and Charisa Coulter -- were not released, their attorney said, because
the investigating magistrate wants to question them further. In particular, the
attorney said, the magistrate wants to ask about visits to Haiti before the
ill-fated trip last month in which they and their fellow missionaries tried to
take 33 children from Haiti to the neighbouring Dominican Republic without
authorization.
The Baptist missionaries, most of
them from an Idaho church group, depicted their actions as a well-intentioned
attempt to help children flee the chaotic conditions afflicting Haiti since the
12 January earthquake. But Haitian
authorities arrested them as they arrived at the border 29 January, saying
that some of the children were not orphans and that the Americans had accepted
them from often distraught parents without going through proper channels.
Their case was further complicated
when it became known that a Dominican resident who offered his services as a lawyer
for the missionaries was himself wanted for questioning about a
child-trafficking ring in El Salvador
and about immigrant smuggling in the United States. The self-appointed adviser,
a U.S. citizen identified as Jorge Puello, proclaimed his innocence last week
and then dropped out of sight.
In addition, an earlier lawyer for
the group was fired after he was accused of offering a bribe to the investigating
magistrate looking into the case. U.S. officials, eager to avoid displaying an
overbearing attitude, emphasized that the case was in the hands of the Haitian
judicial system and declined to press publicly for the missionaries' release.
The 10 Americans, meanwhile,
languished in a prison at the Judicial Police headquarters where President Rene
Preval has installed his offices since the National Palace collapsed during the
tremor.