A Haitian judge has decided to release 10 US missionaries accused of kidnapping 33 children and trying to take them out of the earthquake-stricken country, a judicial source has said.
The source said the missionaries, who have been in jail since they were stopped at Haiti's border with the Dominican Republic on January 29th, could be released as early as today.
"The order will be to release them," the source. "One thing an investigating judge seeks in a criminal investigation is criminal intentions on the part of the people involved and there is nothing that shows that criminal intention on the part of the Americans," the source said.
The missionaries, most of whom belong to an Idaho-based Baptist church, were arrested trying to take the children across the border to the Dominican Republic 17 days after a magnitude 7 earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people in the impoverished Caribbean nation.
The five men and five women have denied any intentional wrongdoing and said they were only trying to help orphans left destitute by the quake, which shattered the Haitian capital and left more than one million homeless. But evidence has come to light showing most of the children still had living parents.
As part of Haiti's legal requirements, investigating Judge Bernard Sainvil must send a notice of his decision to the prosecutor. That will be done today, the source said.
During hearings in the case, Judge Sainvil heard from 10 parents of children handed over to the Americans. They said they had turned over their children because they had no food or water to give them, and believed they would have a better life elsewhere.
"All of them pleaded for the release of the Americans," the source said.
The case has been a distraction to the Haitian government as it tries to cope with the aftermath of the earthquake and was diplomatically sensitive for the United States as it spearheads a massive international effort to feed and shelter Haitian quake survivors.
The US government had said it was providing the Americans with consular access and monitoring their case, but made clear it did not want to interfere.
Reuters