8 missionaries in Haiti are freed, return home

February 18, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Eight American missionaries were freed from a Haitian jail and left for Miami on Wednesday, nearly three weeks after being charged with kidnapping for trying to take 33 children out of the earthquake-stricken country.

Reporters watched as the U.S. Air Force C-130 cargo plane carrying the group took off from the tarmac. Officials from the U.S. Embassy and State Department, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, confirmed that the Americans were on the plane.

The group’s rapid departure from Haiti began earlier Wednesday when Judge Bernard Saint-Vil said eight of the 10 missionaries were free to leave without bail after parents of the children testified they voluntarily handed their children over to the missionaries.

“The parents of the kids made statements proving that they can be released,” he said, adding that he still wanted to question the group’s leader and her nanny.

Hours later, just after dusk, the bedraggled and sweaty-looking group walked out of the Haitian jail escorted by U.S. diplomats. They waited until they were safely inside a white van before flashing smiles and giving a thumbs-up to reporters.

The missionaries, most from two Baptist churches in Idaho, are accused of trying to take 33 Haitian children to the Dominican Republic on Jan. 29 without proper documents. Their detentions came just as aid officials were urging a halt to short-cut adoptions in the wake of the earthquake.

The missionaries say they were on a humanitarian mission to rescue child quake victims by taking them to a hastily prepared orphanage in the Dominican Republic and have denied accusations of trafficking.

Group leader Laura Silsby originally said they were taking only orphaned and abandoned children, but reporters found that several of the children were handed over to the group by their parents, who said the hoped the Baptists would give them a better life.