Americans charged with child trafficking in Haiti

[Pathfinder]

Americans charged with child trafficking in Haiti

By North America correspondent Lisa Millar and wires
Posted 3 hours 19 minutes ago

Ten Americans have been charged with child trafficking after they allegedly tried to leave Haiti with more than 30 survivors of the country's devastating earthquake.

The Americans say they were trying to help orphaned children, but Haitian authorities say they had no documents to prove they had cleared the adoption of the children.

The Baptists were arrested at Malpasse, Haiti's main border crossing with the Dominican Republic, after Haitian police conducted a routine search of their bus.

There were 33 children, aged from two months to 12 years, on board.

Haitian culture and communications minister Marie Laurence Jocelyn
Lassegue says border police "saw a bus with a lot of children".

"When asked about the children's documents, they had no documents," she said.

Social affairs minister Yves Christallin says the Americans are members of an Idaho-based charity called New Life Children's Refuge.

"This is an abduction, not an adoption," he said.

But the group's leader, Laura Silsby, says they were trying to take abandoned children to an orphanage across the border in the Dominican Republic.

"The entire team deeply fell in love with these children," she said.

"They are very, very precious kids that have lost their homes and their families and are so, so deeply in need of God's love and his compassion and just a very nurturing setting."

But a care centre chief says most of the children "have family" that survived the January 12 earthquake.

Read more at:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/01/2806227.htm

 

[Pathfinder]

Re: Americans charged with child trafficking in Haiti

Baptist group denies trafficking in Haitian kids

Charity official tells NBC that one girl said she still has parents

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=624 border=0 itxtvisited="1"><TBODY itxtvisited="1"><TR itxtvisited="1"><TD style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 15px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 25px" vAlign=top width="1%" itxtvisited="1"> Ramon Espinosa / AP
Laura Silsby, of Boise, Idaho, speaks to The Associated Press at police headquarters in Port-au-Prince on Saturday after 10 Americans were detained for trying to bus 33 Haitian children across the border into the Dominican Republic without proper documents.


</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

NBC News and news services
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PORT-AU-PRINCE - Ten American Baptists were being held in the Haitian capital Sunday after trying take 33 children out of Haiti at a time of growing fears over possible child trafficking.

The director of the charity now watching the children told NBC News that one child said she still had parents and was only expecting a brief vacation.

He added that a policeman believed the group was trying to sell the children for $10,000 each, an allegation denied by the church members.

As far as we know they would have been, I say it clearly, sold for $10,000 each," said Georg Willeit, who runs the SOS Children's Village outside Port-au-Prince. "That's what one of the policemen told us. Every child was very desperate, hungry, thirsty. They all were in a bad condition."

"One of the elder girls told us, 'I'm not an orphan. I still have my parents,'" he added. "She thought she was going on a summer holiday vacation given by friendly people from America and the Dominican Republic."

The church members, most from Idaho, said they were trying to rescue abandoned and traumatized children. But officials said they lacked the proper documents when they were arrested Friday night in a bus along with children from 2 months to 12 years old who had survived the catastrophic earthquake.

The group said its "Haitian Orphan Rescue Mission" was an effort to help abandoned children by taking them to an orphanage across the border in the Dominican Republic.

"In this chaos the government is in right now we were just trying to do the right thing," the group's spokeswoman, Laura Silsby, told The Associated Press at the judicial police headquarters in the capital, where the Americans were being held pending a Monday hearing before a judge.

No charges had been filed, though Haiti's national secretary for security, Aramick Louis, said a judge had already done a preliminary investigation into the case.

Prime Minister Max Bellerive told The Associated Press Sunday he was outraged by the group's "illegal trafficking of children" in a country long afflicted by the scourge and by foreign meddling.

But the hard reality on the ground in this desperately poor country ? especially after the catastrophic Jan. 12 quake ? is that some parents openly attest to their willingness to part with their children if it will mean a better life.

It was a sentiment expressed by all but one of some 20 Haitian parents interviewed at a tent camp Sunday that teemed with children whose toys were hewn from garbage.

"Some parents I know have already given their children to foreigners," said Adonis Helman, 44. "I've been thinking how I will choose which one I may give ? probably my youngest."

The Baptist group planned to scoop up 100 kids and take them by bus to a 45-room hotel at Cabarete, a beach resort in the Dominican Republic, that they were converting into an orphanage, Silsby told the AP.
Whatever their intentions, other child welfare organizations in Haiti said the plan was foolish at best.

"The instinct to swoop in and rescue children may be a natural impulse but it cannot be the solution for the tens of thousands of children left vulnerable by the Haiti earthquake," said Deb Barry, a protection expert at

Save the Children, which wants a moratorium on new adoptions. "The possibility of a child being scooped up and mistakenly labeled an orphan in the chaotic aftermath of the disaster is incredibly high."

Much more at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35162046/ns/world_news-haiti_earthquake/

 

[Pathfinder]

Re: Americans charged with child trafficking in Haiti

Haiti: American Baptists may be sent to U.S. for prosecution

by Associated Press
Posted on February 1, 2010 at 11:25 AM
Updated today at 11:44 AM

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti ? Haitian and U.S. officials are considering a trial in the United States for 10 Americans who were arrested while trying to bus children out of Haiti without documents or permission.

The aborted Baptist "rescue mission" has become a major distraction for a crippled government trying to provide basic life support to millions of earthquake survivors. Haiti's courts and justice ministry were destroyed in the disaster, which also killed many judicial officials.

But the government insisted Monday that the Americans ? however well-intentioned ? must be prosecuted to send a strong message against child trafficking.

"There can be no question of taking our children off the streets and out of the country," Communications Minister Marie-Laurence Jocelin Lassegue said. "They will be judged. ... That's what is important."

Since their arrest Friday near the border, the church group has been held inside two small concrete rooms in the same judicial police headquarters building where ministers have makeshift offices and give disaster response briefings. They have not yet been charged.

One of their lawyers said they were being treated poorly: "There is no air conditioning, no electricity. It is very disturbing," Attorney Jorge Puello told the AP by phone from the Dominican Republic, where the Baptists hoped to shelter the children in a rented beach hotel.

One of the Americans, Charisa Coulter of Boise, Idaho, was being treated Monday at the University of Miami's field hospital near the capital's international airport. Looking pale and speaking with difficulty from a green Army cot, the 24-year-old Coulter said she had either severe dehydration or the flu. A diabetic, she initially thought her insulin had gone bad in the heat.

Two Haitian police officers stood besides the cot, guarding her.

Read more at:
http://www.ktvb.com/home/Haiti-Arrested-Baptists-may-be-sent-to-US-83264592.html

 

[Pathfinder]

Re: Americans charged with child trafficking in Haiti

Arrests intensify Haiti adoption debate

Some groups call for moratorium, others fear long-term clampdown

updated 2 hours, 41 minutes ago<SCRIPT language=javascript> function UpdateTimeStamp(pdt) { var n = document.getElementById("udtD"); if(pdt != '' && n && window.DateTime) { var dt = new DateTime(); pdt = dt.T2D(pdt); if(dt.GetTZ(pdt)) {n.innerHTML = dt.D2S(pdt,((''.toLowerCase()=='false')?false:true));} } } UpdateTimeStamp('634006620271670000');</SCRIPT>

NEW YORK - The debate over international adoption, already a bitter one, has intensified in the aftermath of Haiti's earthquake and the arrest of 10 Americans for trying to take children out of the devastated country without permission.

Some groups are urging a long moratorium on new adoptions from Haiti, saying there is too much chaos and too high a risk of mistakes or child trafficking. Other groups fear any long-term clampdown will consign countless children to lives in institutions or on the street, rather than in the loving homes of adoptive parents.
Chuck Johnson, chief operating officer of the National Council for Adoption, said the arrests of the 10 U.S. Baptists would probably undercut his organization's push to expand adoptions from Haiti as soon as feasible.


'Critical mistake'

"It was a critical mistake ? the Haitian government has been very clear they did not want any children leaving without its express permission," Johnson said Monday. "Maybe the Americans thought they were helping 33 kids, but now there's going to be a much slower process and maybe even a ban on future adoptions ? and that would be a tragedy."

The Americans, arrested Friday near Haiti's border with the Dominican Republican, were being held in a police headquarters in Port au Prince while Haitian and U.S officials discussed their fate.

Even before the arrests, the Haitian government called a halt to new international adoptions. Numerous organizations have endorsed the moratorium, some of them citing U.N. guidelines recommending that at least two years be spent tracing lost families before adoptions should be considered.

"No matter how horrific the situation looks ... the full process of reuniting children with parents and relatives must be completed," said Deb Barry, a Save the Children child protection expert.

The next steps, says UNICEF, should be compiling a registry of children separated from their families, an extensive campaign to trace relatives, and development of safe, well-supplied places where these children can stay during the search process.

More at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35188317/ns/world_news-haiti_earthquake/

 

[Missouriwatcher]

Re: Americans charged with child trafficking in Haiti

Interview with Haitian parents whose children were given to Americans:
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2010/02/01/penhaul.haiti.americans.det.cnn?hpt=C2

 

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Americans charged with child trafficking in Haiti

This is actually an editorial, but it brings up some relevent points.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Good intentions require respect

Tribune editorial

Hopefully the 10 Americans who attempted to take a bus load of children from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to a orphanage in the Dominican Republic had only the best intentions.

Right now the truth seems a little murky.

A number of the children being taken across the border, apparently, were not orphans. The Americans, from a pair of Baptist churches in Idaho, had no documentation confirming that the children were orphans or that they had permission to take the children. The whole incident could be brushed off as good intentions gone astray if it weren't for a history of terrible crimes against children in Haiti. There's cause to take another look at the Americans and their intentions.

When there are humongous natural disasters like the earthquake in Haiti, where people are in great need of help, it's understandable that good-hearted people want to rush to the scene to give aid. It's not only understandable, it's admirable. But international aid, in Haiti, in Samoa or wherever, must be offered with the consent of the victim country's government. And it's best offered within the cultural understanding of the people of that country.

The authorities in Haiti had been worried about attempts in "trafficking children" even as the ground continued to shake in the aftermath of the level 7 earthquake. Adoptions were halted. In this country, specific guidelines were established in regards to refugees from Haiti. In other words, the group wanting to set up an orphanage in the Domincan Republic ought to have known they were running against the grain of legal authority.

The future of Haiti, including its children, orphaned or not, is cause for worry. Right now, the issue in that earthquake-ravaged country is getting medical attention, food and water to those who need it. Efforts are being made to create shelter for more than 2 million people of Port-au-Prince who cannot go home. Plans are being considered for rebuilding a functional infrastructure and, importantly for the long-term future, an economy for the impoverished country.

There will be many opportunities for Americans to help the people of Haiti, but to a large degree it must be on Haitian terms.

Good intentions carried as far astray as in this case, if that's what it was, suggest a presumptiveness of America knows best -- that much complained about American arrogance. And in Haiti, where the United States has a long history, it suggests a nearly colonial benevolence which the people of Haiti would be justified in finding offensive.

http://www.bismarcktribune.com/news...cle_760bd402-1020-11df-ae04-001cc4c002e0.html

 

[Pathfinder]

Re: Americans charged with child trafficking in Haiti

Wednesday, Feb. 03, 2010

Clinton regrets actions of Americans held in Haiti

By By MATTHEW LEE | Associated Press Writer

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday that the attempt to bring undocumented children out of Haiti by 10 American missionaries now detained in the country was "unfortunate" and that they should have followed proper procedures.

Clinton told reporters at the State Department that the Americans should not have taken matters into their own hands by bringing children from earthquake-ravaged Haiti to the Dominican Republic and should have followed proper adoption procedures. She said U.S. officials were in discussions with Haitian authorities about how to resolve the case.

"The Haitian nation acted to protect children who were being removed from their country without appropriate documentation," she said. "We have worked with the Haitian governent over the last two-and-a-half, three weeks to help facilitate and transport children who are properly documented as having an adoptive family or guardianship waiting."

"We know how to do this in the right way," Clinton said. "It was unfortunate, whatever the motivation that this group of Americans took matters into their own hands. As you know, they have been charged with breaking the laws of Haiti and we are engaged in discussions with the Haitian government about the appoproiate disposition of their cases."

Read more at:
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/national_and_world/story/1014665.html

 

[Pathfinder]

Re: Americans charged with child trafficking in Haiti

Attorney says US Baptists charged in child case

By FRANK BAJAK - Associated Press Writer
Published: 02/04/10

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti ? Ten Americans detained in Haiti for trying to take 33 children out of the country after the earthquake were charged with child kidnapping and criminal association on Thursday, their Haitian lawyer said.

Edwin Coq said that a judge found sufficient evidence to file charges against the Americans, who were arrested Friday at Haiti's border with the Dominican Republic. Coq attended Thursday's hearing and has represented the entire group in Haiti.

The U.S. citizens, most of them members of an Idaho-based church group, were whisked away from the closed court hearing to jail in Port-au-Prince, the capital. One of them, Laura Silsby, waved and smiled faintly to reporters but declined to answer questions.

Coq said that under Haiti's legal system, there won't be an open trial, but a judge will consider the evidence. It could take the judge three months to render a verdict, Coq said.

Coq said a Haitian prosecutor told him the Americans were charged because they had the children in their possession. No one from the Haitian government could be reached immediately for comment.

Each of the kidnapping counts carries a possible sentence of five to 15 years in prison.

http://www.idahostatesman.com/newsupdates/story/1066874.html

 

[Missouriwatcher]

Re: Americans charged with child trafficking in Haiti

One Missionary Was In Financial Trouble

"...Ms. Silsby and the nine other Americans with a nonprofit group she founded were arrested last Friday at the Dominican border with children ranging in age from two months to 13 years old...

...For at least the past two years, Ms. Silsby, the 40-year-old head of an online personal-shopping service, tried to build orphanages near Boise, Idaho, where she lives, and in the Dominican Republic, where she hoped to house homeless children from Haiti. But the Idaho plans were stymied by Ms. Silsby's financial difficulties, which included foreclosure on her house and lawsuits by creditors and an employee seeking back pay...

...As her ambitions grew, her financial difficulties mounted. Activity in the offices of Ms. Silsby's business, PersonalShopper.com, visibly slowed, said Scotty Bates, a manager at SpeedyQuick Networks Inc., an Internet service provider whose office is in the same building as Personal Shopper's. On Thursday, Personal Shopper's offices were locked and dark.

Personal Shopper Inc. was also facing suits. One filed in federal court in Miami alleged that Personal Shopper Inc. owed more than $320,000 to Florida-based TSG Media Inc..."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703357104575045794048725562.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

 

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Americans charged with child trafficking in Haiti

Haiti PM: Child abduction issue 'distracts' from relief

The Haitian prime minister has warned that the case of 10 US missionaries charged with child abduction is a "distraction" from earthquake recovery.

Jean-Max Bellerive said more than 200,000 people had died in the quake and one million still needed help.

The group of missionaries has been charged with child abduction and criminal conspiracy.

They deny allegations that they tried to smuggle 33 children across the border to the Dominican Republic.

When stopped on the border last Friday, the group said they were taking the children to an orphanage. But it has since emerged some of the youngsters' parents were still alive.

'In good faith'

Mr Bellerive said the case of the missionaries risked diverting international attention from the continued plights of the Port-au-Prince residents who had lost their homes and livelihoods.

"I believe it's a distraction for the Haitian people because they are talking more now about 10 people than they are about one million people suffering in the streets," he said.

The group's lawyer, Edwin Coq, said his clients were "naive" but not malicious in their actions.

"They had no idea they were violating the law. They were acting in good faith and they just wanted to help," he said.

But, in comments reported by the Washington Post, he added: "If there is someone that the justice system must retain for some questioning, it is the leader of the group, Madame Laura."

From Washington, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said for the first time that the two governments were discussing the diplomatically sensitive case.

"It was unfortunate, whatever their motivation, that this group of Americans took matters into their own hands," Mrs Clinton added.

Haitian officials have said that the cases of the 10 US citizens will now be sent to an investigating judge who will decide how to proceed.

If convicted they face lengthy jail terms, says the BBC's Paul Adams, in Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince.

'Kidnappers'

After Thursday's hearing the 10 missionaries were taken back to the jail where they have been kept since last Friday.

------------------------------------------
ANALYSIS
Nick Davis, BBC News, Port-au-Prince

This case has become the biggest thing since the quake. It's pushed the tragedy - that has seen up to 200,000 killed and countless more made homeless - off the front page.

The issues surrounding this story are important - natural disasters in the past have seen cases of child trafficking. A warning by Unicef saw the increased security by the Haitian authorities that led to the arrest.

With the US spearheading the relief mission and with the American aid public donating so much to the survivors of the disaster, the expectation of many was that they would be released, that they would turn up at court and, a short time later, be whisked out of the country.
----------------------------------------------------------------

Amid chaotic scenes, the group was bundled into a van outside the court.

"I feel good," the group's leader Laura Silsby told reporters. "I trust in God."

The five men and five women, most of them from Idaho, were due to have a hearing earlier in the week, but that was postponed because of a lack of interpreters.

Mr Bellerive has labelled the Americans "kidnappers".

Justice Minister Paul Denis has said that they should be tried in Haiti despite the damage done to the country's judicial infrastructure and casualties among judges and court staff.

There had been suggestions that the 10 could be tried in the US.

"It is Haitian law that has been violated, it is up to the Haitian authorities to hear and judge the case," he told AFP news agency.

"I don't see any reason why they should be tried in the United States."

The US ambassador to Haiti, Kenneth Merten, said that the US would do all it could to ensure the group were treated fairly and in accordance with Haitian law.

Single village

The children, who are from aged from two to 12, are now in the care of the Austrian-run SOS Children's Village in Port-au-Prince.

Twenty-one of the children were from a single village outside the capital and were handed over willingly by their parents, our correspondent says.

Residents in the village of Callebas told an Associated Press news agency reporter that they had handed their children over through a local orphanage worker who said he was acting on the Americans' behalf.

The worker is said to have promised the families that the missionaries would educate their children in neighbouring Dominican Republic.

A number of parents in the badly-damaged village said they would find it difficult to provide for their children if they came back.

Ms Silsby has said her group had met a Haitian pastor by chance when they arrived last week, and that he had helped them gather the children. She also admitted that they did not have the proper paperwork.

"Our intent was to help only those children that needed us most, that had lost either both their mother and father, or had lost one of their parents and the other had abandoned them," she said from her jail cell on Wednesday.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/8499679.stm

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[Pathfinder]

Re: Americans charged with child trafficking in Haiti

10 US missionaries charged in Haiti with kidnapping; lawyer says 9 are innocent

By FRANK BAJAK | Associated Press |
8 hours, 26 minutes ago in <!-- BEGIN: StorySections -->World <!-- END: StorySections -->

Excerpts:

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."
---------------------
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.
--------------------
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.

http://www.newser.com/article/d9dlr...th-kidnapping-lawyer-says-9-are-innocent.html

 

[Pathfinder]

Re: Americans charged with child trafficking in Haiti

Bill Clinton urges solution to Haiti 'kidnap' case

2 hours, 34 minutes ago

<!-- phugc -->By Joseph Guyler Delva


Reuters Photo: Former President and United Nations Special Envoy for Haiti, Bill Clinton talks with journalists in...

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Bill Clinton urged the U.S. and Haitian governments on Friday to resolve the case of 10 American missionaries accused of trying to take children illegally out of quake-hit Haiti.

Clinton, named by the United Nations to coordinate relief efforts for survivors of the devastating January 12 quake, made the appeal during a visit to the shattered Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, his second since last month's disaster.

The accused U.S. missionaries, most of whom belong to an Idaho-based Baptist church, were arrested a week ago and charged on Thursday with child kidnapping and criminal association.

Haitian authorities say the group tried to take a busload of 33 Haitian children across the border into the Dominican Republic without any papers proving the minors were orphans or any official permission to take them out of the country.

The missionaries deny any intentional wrongdoing and say they were only trying to help children left destitute by the January 12 earthquake, which killed more than 200,000 people, injured some 300,000 and left over a million more homeless.

The Americans' case is diplomatically sensitive and aid groups complain it has distracted media and world attention away from the struggle to feed and shelter hundreds of thousands of Haitians camped out in wrecked streets.

"What's important now is for the government of Haiti and the government of the United States to get together and work through this," Clinton told CNN in Port-au-Prince.

He said he understood the Haitian government's efforts to try to protect its children from possible child traffickers and unlawful adoptions following the catastrophic quake.

But he also said the missionaries could be telling the truth when they argued they simply wanted to help the children and did not mean to violate any laws. Evidence has emerged that many of the intercepted children were not orphans but were given up by parents who wanted them to have a better life.

"The government of Haiti ... (is) not looking for some big fight here. They just want to protect their children and they also want to make sure they have a good inventory so they don't send children away that maybe have an aunt or an uncle that have an income," Clinton said.

"I think they'll find a way to defuse the crisis and work through this," he added, but he said the case was not his direct responsibility.

The missionaries, five men and five women, were questioned individually on Friday by investigating judge Bernard Sainvil at the offices of the prosecutor in the city.

Officials said the judge would continue his investigation next Monday and Tuesday, before making a decision on whether to release the 10 or proceed with the case against them.

WASHINGTON MONITORING, NOT INTERFERING

The missionaries' lawyer, Edwin Coq, said he had requested the 10 be released provisionally pending the further hearings, but no decision was immediately taken on that.

Coq said the Americans, who had been held at police headquarters up to now, were taken after the questioning on Friday to established prisons -- the women to a women's prison in the Petionville suburb and the men to the quake-damaged central prison in the capital.

The U.S. government, which is spearheading the big relief operation in Haiti, has said it is providing the Americans with consular access and monitoring their case, but it has made clear it does not want to interfere.

"Obviously this is a matter for the Haitian judicial system," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is Bill Clinton's wife, told reporters in Washington.

Haitian President Rene Preval's crippled administration, which has been accused by many of its citizens of failing to do enough to help quake survivors, has defended its decision to detain and charge the Americans.

"It is true the country has been brought to its knees by the earthquake, but we still have laws. ... In any case, whoever violates the law has to be sanctioned, whether the violator is a U.S. or European citizen, or someone else," Justice Minister Paul Denis told Reuters.

The detained Americans were still hoping on Friday they would eventually be released. "We pray to God for the outcome," said the group's leader, Laura Silsby.

Another member of the group, which called itself the New Life Children's Refuge and planned to build an orphanage in the Dominican Republic for the Haitian children, said it was "unfortunate" that world attention was focusing on their case and not the plight of Haiti's earthquake victims.

"I think the most important thing is to continue to put the focus on the people, the kids who are suffering, because they need help. That's the reason why we were here in the first place, to help," Silas Daniel Thompson, 19, told Reuters while he was being taken to see the investigating judge.

Haiti's government has tightened adoption procedures since the quake, saying it feared unscrupulous traffickers could try to take advantage of the disaster by spiriting away vulnerable children. Officials said they already had reports of trafficking of minors, and even of human organs.

(Additional reporting by Tom Brown and Jim Loney in Port-au-Prince and Andrew Quinn in Washington; Writing by Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Peter Cooney)

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/100206/us/usreport_us_quake_haiti_missionaries

 

[Pathfinder]

Re: Americans charged with child trafficking in Haiti

Five Americans appear in court in Haiti </HEADLINE><!-- Class 'push-0' just right-aligns the element so that the main content comes first. -->
<!-- cT-storyDetails --><CITE></CITE>
<CITE>February 9, 2010 - 5:54AM </CITE>

AFP
Five of 10 American Baptists charged with kidnapping and conspiracy appeared at a Haitian court on Monday for hearings on their attempt to take a busload of children to the neighbouring Dominican Republic.

Laura Silsby, group's leader, was among those taken to the court for hearings, a judicial source close to the case told AFP. The other five would go to court on Tuesday.

"We will get into the details today," the source said, adding that any request to transfer the case to the United States would be studied before a decision is finalised.

The 10 Americans from Idaho will then be heard together on Wednesday to iron out any potential contradictions in their accounts of the incident.
Officials also said they hope to interview most of the children's parents before the end of the week. The head prosecutor can then decide whether to grant them a conditional release.

The judge then has three months to examine the case and reach a final decision.

Edwin Coq, a Haitian lawyer who had been seeking to free the Americans arrested near the border after Haiti's devastating quake, said he quit the case on Saturday after being accused of trying to bribe the judge.

He strongly denied the bribery accusation.

More at:
http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-...s-appear-in-court-in-haiti-20100209-nnkz.html

 

[Pathfinder]

Re: Americans charged with child trafficking in Haiti

Haitian judge recommends 10 American Baptists held for child trafficking be released

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Thursday, February 11th 2010, 11:11 AM

Moore/Getty
Members of the Idaho-based Baptist charity group New Life Children's Refuge arrive for a court hearing. Judge as recommend they be released.



PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti ? The Haitian judge deciding whether 10 U.S. missionaries should face trial on charges of trying to take a busload of children out of the country says he will recommend that they be released.

Judge Bernard Saint-Vil finished questioning the Americans on Wednesday. He now must send his recommendation to the prosecutor, who may agree or object.

But the judge has the final authority to decide whether they stay in custody or go free.

Saint-Vil told The Associated Press he will recommend that all 10 be released.

He would not elaborate, and it was not clear whether that recommendation means the charges may be dropped.


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2010/02/11/2010-02-11_haitian_judge_recommends_10_american_baptists_held_for_child_trafficking_be_rele.html#ixzz0fFH1JgHX

 

[Pathfinder]

Re: Americans charged with child trafficking in Haiti

Haiti frees eight of the 10 detained Americans

Laura Silsby and Charisa Coulter to be held for further investigation

John Moore / Getty Images
U.S. missionaries released from a Port-au-Prince jail sit in a van after a Haitian judge granted them bail and told them they could leave the country Feb. 17.

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Eight American missionaries were freed from a Haitian jail Wednesday, nearly three weeks after being charged with child kidnapping for trying to take a group of children out of the quake-stricken country.

The eight ? looking bedraggled and sweat-soaked ? walked out of the Haitian jail escorted by U.S. diplomats just after dusk. They waited until they were safely inside a white van before flashing smiles and giving a thumbs up to reporters.

Hours earlier, judge Bernard Saint-Vil told The Associated Press that eight of the 10 missionaries were free to leave without bail or other conditions after parents testified they voluntarily handed their children over to the missionaries.

"The parents of the kids made statements proving that they can be released," he said, adding that still wants to question the group's leader and her nanny.

Read more at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35441854/ns/world_news-haiti_earthquake/