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Haiti judge orders release of 8 US missionaries charged with kidnapping

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] A Haitian judge on Wednesday ordered the release of eight of the 10 US missionaries held in a Haitian jail on kidnapping charges in the wake of the January 12 earthquake. Eight of the 10 members of the missionary group, affiliated with the Central Valley Baptist Church of Idaho and the New Life Children's Refuge Charity, were released without bail Wednesday and flown overnight to Miami on an American military cargo plane. The eight were allowed to leave Haiti after the children's parents testified that they voluntarily handed over the children to the missionaries because they were promised a better life. The two others, Laura Silsby and Charisa Coulter remain in custody while they are questioned by Judge Bernard Saint-Vil about their plan to take Haitian children out of the country to the neighboring Dominican republic without adoption certificates. Saint-Vil said the two others were being held because they been to Haiti prior to the earthquake. Saint-Vil had said last week that that would recommend a provisional release pending an investigation. Even as American and Haitian lawyers worked toward their release last week, it was reported that the eight released missionaries accused Silsby and Coulter of misleading them. The 7.0 magnitude earthquake caused massive damage to property and infrastructure in Haiti, and the death toll has now been estimated at more than 200,000.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on February 18, 2010 (boomark / email).