Haiti contradicts charges dropped against American missionaries

A lawyer for ten American missionaries, said the Haitian government has dropped kidnapping charges against nine of 10 Americans arrested in January.

The missionaries were arrested trying to take a busload of 33 children from Haiti to an orphanage in the Dominican Republic. Nine of them were later released and allowed to return home.

Laura Silsby, the group’s leader, is still being held in a Port-au-Prince jail.

Attorney General Joseph Manes was responding to news from the office of U.S. Sen Jim Risch, R-Idaho, whose staff on Thursday said the charges had been dropped against all but one of the Baptist missionaries. Group leader Laura Silsby remains in a Haitian jail. Risch spokesman Kyle Hines said the senator had been contacted by officials at the U.S. State Department, confirming that the kidnapping charges against the other nine were dropped.

But Haiti’s top prosecutor on Friday denied reports that charges have been dropped against nine of the 10 American missionaries accused of kidnapping children after a devastating earthquake hit the nation in January.

However, Manes said that information was “absolutely incorrect.” He said that under Haitian law, all charges against the 10 Americans stand until the examining judge, Bernard Saint-Vil, renders his final decision on whether to proceed to trial.

Risch’s communications director, Brad Hoaglun, said: “We are standing by what we were orginally told by the State Department. We did, however, ask the State Department to reconfirm for us, and we are waiting that response.”

Authorities in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, accused the group, many of whom belong to a Baptist church in Idaho, of trying to kidnap 33 Haitian children after an earthquake in January leveled much of the capital and surrounding areas.

The Rev. Clint Henry of the Central Valley Baptist Church said the missionaries were notified by a State Department e-mail that the charges were dropped and no other charges were pending.

Meanwhile, Manes said his office received the documents pertaining to Saint-Vil’s investigation and that his staff has five days to derive an opinion, which will remain confidential, on whether to move forward on a trial or dismiss the charges. At that point the case will be returned to the judge for a final decision.

The 10 Americans have said they were trying to help the children get to a safe place after the magnitude-7.0 earthquake.