Haiti judge to free US missionaries -judicial source

PORT-AU-PRINCE, (Reuters) – A Haitian judge has  decided to release 10 U.S. missionaries accused of kidnapping  33 children and trying to spirit them out of the earthquake-  stricken country, a judicial source said yesterday.

The source said the missionaries, who have been in jail  since they were stopped at Haiti’s border with the Dominican  Republic on Jan. 29, could be released as early as Thursday.

“The order will be to release them,” the source, who asked  not to be named, told Reuters. The decision has not yet been  made public.

“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 1 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.

Once he receives the order, the prosecutor could offer an  opinion that one or more of the Americans should be held but  that would have no legal effect on the judge’s decision, the  source said.

During hearings in the case, 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.