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Detained Americans questioned by Haitian judge

02 February 2010 21:38 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Ziya Agazade â€“ APA. A group of U.S. Baptist missionaries arrested trying to leave Haiti with a busload of children they gathered from the disaster zone were being questioned Tuesday by a judge, APA reports citing â€œAssociated Pressâ€.

The investigating magistrate queried the five women for several hours and will follow up with the five men on Wednesday, according to the Haiti’s communications minister. No lawyers were present, and the Americans have yet to be charged.

Minister Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue says the evidence will be presented to a Haitian district attorney to decide whether to file charges.
The Baptists from Idaho say they were only trying to help orphans survive the earthquake. But legal experts say taking children across a border without documents or government permission can be considered child trafficking.

The U.S. government could claim jurisdiction to try them in the United States, but one expert on international abductions doubts it will happen, since prosecutors are likely to take into account the mitigating circumstances.

"They have obviously made a huge mistake by unilaterally going into Haiti and taking children without the permission and knowledge of the Haitian government. It’s a crime in Haiti and anywhere in the world to take or abduct children even if the underlying intentions were humanitarian or good in nature," said Christopher Schmidt, an attorney with Bryan Cave LLP in St. Louis.

"Whether or not a prosecutor would choose to prosecute these individuals in this case is an open question. Frankly I have doubts whether a prosecutor would want to go down that path," he said.