US missionaries set for release in Haiti

PORT AU PRINCE - Ten US missionaries from Idaho-based New Life Children’s Refuge charity accused of illegally trying to take 33 children out of Haiti will soon be released, a Haitian judicial source said.

The source said the missionaries, who were stopped at Haiti’s border with the Dominican Republic on January 29, could be granted conditional leave and released as early as Thursday.

“The order will be to release them. One thing an investigating judge seeks in a criminal investigation is criminal intentions, and there is nothing that shows criminal intention here,” Sky News quoted a source, as saying.

Defence attorney Gary Lassade said that the judge has finished questioning the group, and his next step is to issue his recommendation to the prosecutor.

Johnny Antoine, the father of a 10-month-old child he entrusted to the group of Americans, was in court for the missionaries’ latest appearance, and said that he wanted to see the Americans freed.

Antoine said he had willingly given his child to the group because his house had collapsed and he had little means to care for the infant.

He also claimed to have spoken to the missionaries’ leader, Laura Silsby.

“She said she came to Haiti to help me,” Antoine said, adding he had hoped his child would be returned to him in the future.

Other parents at the court have also called for the Americans’ release.

The ten Americans have always maintained that they had no ill-intent when they tried to take the children across the border. (ANI)