PORT-AU-PRINCE,
Haiti – Ten U.S. Baptist missionaries
were charged with kidnapping Thursday
for trying to take 33 children out of
Haiti to a hastily arranged
refuge just as officials were trying to
protect children from predators in the
chaos of a great earthquake.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."The
Americans, most members of two
Idaho churches, said they were rescuing
abandoned children and orphans from a
nation that
UNICEF says had 380,000 even
before the catastrophic Jan. 12
quake.But at least two-thirds of the
children, who range in age from 2 to 12,
have parents who gave them away because
they said the Americans promised the
children a better life.The investigating
judge, who interviewed the missionaries
Tuesday and Wednesday, found sufficient
evidence to charge them for trying to
take the children across the border into
the
Dominican Republic on Jan. 29
without documentation, Coq said.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.