PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — A judge investigating 10 Americans charged with child abduction in earthquake-ravaged Haiti recommended Thursday that they be released from jail and allowed to leave the country but keep a representative in Haiti to answer any further questions in the case.
The Americans must now wait for Haitian prosecutors to decide whether to accept the recommendation. It was not immediately clear when that decision would be made.
It remained unclear when the judge, Bernard Saint-Vil, would make a broader ruling on the merits of the charges against the Americans.
Earlier, one of the lawyers involved in the case, Louis Gary Lissade, urged their unconditional release.
“All 10 Americans need to be freed,” he said in an interview. “They came to help and there was a misunderstanding. They need to go home.”
The Americans, most of them members of a Baptist congregation in Idaho, flew here in the chaotic aftermath of the Jan. 12 earthquake, saying they wanted to rescue children orphaned by the destruction. They were arrested two weeks ago as they tried to take 33 Haitian children to an orphanage in the Dominican Republic, and have been held in jail cells in the Haitian capital since.
Following the arrests, it emerged that several of the children had at least one living parent. In interviews, some of the parents said they had not given their children up for adoption, but had given them to the Americans because they had promised the parents educational opportunities for their sons and daughters.
Haitian prosecutors charged the Americans with child abduction and criminal association, which carry prison terms of up to 15 years. Haitian officials criticized the group as “kidnappers” who “knew what they were doing was wrong,” and called for them to face Haitian justice — calls that resonated with larger worries about encroachments on Haiti’s sovereignty following the earthquake.
The Americans acknowledged failing to obtain proper approvals to take children across the border, but said that they were innocent of any wrongdoing and that the case was a misunderstanding.
Source: The New York Times
The Americans must now wait for Haitian prosecutors to decide whether to accept the recommendation. It was not immediately clear when that decision would be made.
It remained unclear when the judge, Bernard Saint-Vil, would make a broader ruling on the merits of the charges against the Americans.
Earlier, one of the lawyers involved in the case, Louis Gary Lissade, urged their unconditional release.
“All 10 Americans need to be freed,” he said in an interview. “They came to help and there was a misunderstanding. They need to go home.”
The Americans, most of them members of a Baptist congregation in Idaho, flew here in the chaotic aftermath of the Jan. 12 earthquake, saying they wanted to rescue children orphaned by the destruction. They were arrested two weeks ago as they tried to take 33 Haitian children to an orphanage in the Dominican Republic, and have been held in jail cells in the Haitian capital since.
Following the arrests, it emerged that several of the children had at least one living parent. In interviews, some of the parents said they had not given their children up for adoption, but had given them to the Americans because they had promised the parents educational opportunities for their sons and daughters.
Haitian prosecutors charged the Americans with child abduction and criminal association, which carry prison terms of up to 15 years. Haitian officials criticized the group as “kidnappers” who “knew what they were doing was wrong,” and called for them to face Haitian justice — calls that resonated with larger worries about encroachments on Haiti’s sovereignty following the earthquake.
The Americans acknowledged failing to obtain proper approvals to take children across the border, but said that they were innocent of any wrongdoing and that the case was a misunderstanding.
Source: The New York Times
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