Posted: 02/03/2010 at 2:28pm | IP Logged

PORT-AU-PRINCE  – Five of the 10 American Baptist missionaries accused of illegally trying to take children out of earthquake-shattered Haiti left their jail cells temporarily to plead their case to a judge on Tuesday.

The missionaries were arrested on Friday trying to cross into the Dominican Republic from Haiti with a busload of 33 children they said were orphaned by the January 12 quake. They denied charges they were engaged in child trafficking, insisting they were trying to help vulnerable orphans.

Haitian police have said some of the children have living parents.

The case could be diplomatically sensitive at a time when the United States is spearheading a huge relief effort to help hundreds of thousands of Haitian quake victims, and as U.S. aid groups pour millions of dollars of donations into Haiti.

The five missionaries were questioned behind closed doors at Haiti's judicial police headquarters in Port-au-Prince, where they are being held behind bars.

They were escorted from their cells by uniformed Haitian National Police officers to a separate room where the judge awaited along with a clerk and a translator.

"I heard five of them. Then I will hear the other five tomorrow," Judge Ezaie Pierre-Louis said. "After the hearing tomorrow, I will make a report to the prosecutor, then he will decide what he does next."

Communications Minister Marie-Laurence Lassegue said the missionaries did not have lawyers present.

One of the missionaries, a woman, was returned to the police building on Tuesday after being treated at a hospital for hypertension.

Before the hearing, prosecutor Mazarre Fortil said authorities were in the preliminary stages of the investigation. "I am here to hear the Americans, to know more about the case, about what were their intentions," he said.

"We are looking deeper into what happened to determine the next steps."

SOME PARENTS GAVE UP CHILDREN

Haitian authorities have repeatedly expressed concerns that child traffickers could prey on children in the chaos that followed the earthquake that killed up to 200,000 people.

Government officials said the detained Americans had no paperwork proving the children were orphans or giving them permission to take them out of the country.

Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive called the arrested Americans "kidnappers" but later acknowledged the possibility they were misguided and acted in good faith.

Interviewed on CNN's "Larry King Live," Samantha Lankford, the daughter and sister of two detained Americans, said, "I know their heart was to help these people and it very much hurts me that they are being accused of this."

Lisa Allen, whose husband is among the detained, said: "I think it's a big misunderstanding that's kind of been blown out of proportion. Their intentions were to go there and help the kids that were in need."

Haitian police say the parents of several minors intercepted with the Americans have said they agreed to give up their children in the hope they would receive an education and a better life.

"I put them on the bus with my own hands," Lely Laurentus told CNN, describing how he handed over two young daughters to the missionary group.

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Source: Church Report