US Baptist missionaries could be freed

Reports from Haiti indicate ten US Baptist missionaries are set to walk free from jail within days after a judge cleared them of child abduction charges.

The missionaries have been in custody since they were caught trying to take 33 Haitian children across the border into the Dominican Republic last month.

They were charged with child abduction after being found without proper documentation from the Haitian government authorising the removal of the children from the country.

After interviewing them on Monday and Tuesday, Judge Bernard Saint-Vil reportedly concluded that the missionaries had no criminal intent in taking the children and said they could be freed as early as Thursday. The missionaries were facing up to 15 years in prison if found guilty.

The group, led by Laura Silsby, have insisted from the outset that they were taking the children to a resort where they would stay until the construction of a new orphanage had been completed. They claim they were only trying to help the children after they were left destitute by the January 12 earthquake.

The missionaries have faced criticism for not having the proper documentation and taking children who still had at least one living parent.

Some parents reportedly told the court during hearings this week that they willingly gave up their children in the hope that they would have a better life.

The missionaries are members of two Baptist churches in Idaho affiliated to the Southern Baptist Convention. The US Administration said it would not interfere in the case, despite pleas from Southern Baptist leaders Morris Chapman, Johnny Hunt, and Frank Page.