Attorney: Americans in Haiti charged with kidnapping
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti
Edwin Coq said after a court hearing that a judge found
sufficient evidence to charge the Americans, who were arrested
Friday at Haiti's border with the Dominican Republic. Coq attended
Thursday's hearing and represents the entire group in Haiti.
Group leader Laura Silsby has said they were trying to take
orphans and abandoned children to an orphanage in the neighboring
Dominican Republic. She acknowledged they may have lacked paperwork
but said they just meant to help victims of the quake. Officials
say many of the children still have parents.
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 and could render a
verdict in about three months.
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 kidnapping count carries a possible sentence of five to 15
years in prison. Each criminal association count has a potential
sentence of three to nine years.
Coq said that nine of the 10 knew nothing about the alleged
scheme, or that paperwork for the children was not in order.
"I'm going to do everything I can to get the nine out," Coq
said. That would still leave mission leader Laura Silsby facing
charges.
Only minutes earlier, the Americans' Dominican lawyer, Jorge
Puello, had said he expected at least nine of the 10 to be released
Thursday, and said he was arranging a charter flight for them from
Santo Domingo, the Dominican capital.
After the Haitian lawyer's announcement, Puello could not be
reached by telephone for comment.
"I'm at the airport (in Santo Domingo) and we're getting the
plane ready. We're just waiting for the green light," Puello said.
"I spoke to a source inside the jail -- a government official -- who
said nine would be released but one would be held for further
investigation."
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in Washington the
U.S. was monitoring the case and 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.
"But right now the matter rests within the Haitian judicial
system," Crowley said. "We respect that. And we will continue to
have discussions with the Haitian government as this case
proceeds."