Haitian Judge Continues Hearings On Kidnapping Case
Source: Reuters
A Haitian judge is expected to continue with taking testimony accusing two U.S. missionaries of child kidnapping charges who are meanwhile being held in jail.
Investigative judge Bernard Sainvil said that before freeing Laura Silsby and Charisa Coulter he wanted witnesses that he had already examined in the Dominican Republic to give their testimony in Haiti.
“The Americans will have to stay in jail while I hear those people … the hearings will take place Monday and Tuesday, and they won’t be released before I finish,” Sainvil told Reuters.
“The people I met in the Dominican Republic all confirmed statements made previously … by the Americans. The statements played in their favor,” he added.
Uncertain Road Ahead
Although much of the testimony against the two U.S. workers seems to lean in their favor, that they were trying to help child victims of the Haitian quake by transporting them across the boarder into the Dominican Republic, there is no telling how this judge will would. But, the case seems to be leaning toward release.
It’s not as if we are dealing with a sex crimes lawyer and children in the U.S. That would be straight forward. Nor are we talking about the transporting kids over the Canadian border and considering provincial offenses. The D.R. and Haitian republic are not easy to understand from the legal perspective and it will be interesting to see how these cases work out.
Sainvil said on Tuesday that Silsby and Coulter could be released this week.
They were among 10 Americans arrested on January 29 on charges that they tried to take 33 Haitian children out of the country without proper documentation after the devastating January 12 earthquake.
Eight were released last week, but Silsby, the group leader, and Coulter, her assistant, were held in detention for further questioning.
They have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, saying they only wanted to help orphans left destitute by the quake.
But they had no Haitian identity or exit papers for the children. Many of the children had living parents who acknowledged turning them over to the missionaries in the belief they would have better care in the hands of the Americans.
Haitian President Rene Preval estimates the magnitude 7 earthquake killed about 300,000 people.
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My Take: I’m still not sure I understand what gave these Americans the idea that they could transport kids that don’t belong to them across the border without a governmental nod of approval, or at the very least, permission from the family members. In many of these cases the kids had not seen their parents since the quake, as reported by several news agencies. It doesn’t take your typical criminal attorney to automatically figure that somewhere in here some laws were violated. Whether you want to call it kidnapping or not, kids were relocated without consent or country clearance, and that’s just got to be something these guys will have to stand up and face charges on.
Even if these were legitimate aid workers out of New York, I’d be willing to bet that they’d need the help of a pretty solid NY employment contract lawyer to help navigate the laws of working down in Haiti and how they apply to children.
You can bet if the these had been church workers from Long Island accused of drunken driven or some other form of abuse, they’d be calling on thier Cornwall impaired driving lawyer. But it’s difficult to say whether laws in Haiti would apply to the law in the United States as understood by your typical NY Long Island harassment lawyer, or child advocates for that matter.
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