Posted on 02/10/2010 3:20:50 PM PST by Free ThinkerNY
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 on Wednesday.
The source said the missionaries, who have been in jail since they were stopped at Haiti's border with the Dominican Republic on January 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Thereby rectifying a monumentally stupid legal action, even for Haitian police.
The gal who dreamt this up can come back to the US to face the music with regard to her scamming her employees.
She would have much preferred to stay in the Dominican Republic scamming dollars for orphans.
You seem really happy at the release of these Christians.
Thank God! This was a monumental miscarriage of justice, meant to let Haiti off the hook for its mishandling of aid funds and to attack one of the groups liberal Americans love to hate.
Oh please. She’s the daughter of a man who spent many years as a medical missionary in Haiti and, while she may not be a great businesswoman in her for-profit businesses, she was obviously just trying to do something to help the children the Haitian government seems to be too busy/corrupt to notice.
I’m waiting for the rest of the tag-team to arrive.
Disgusting how they took children who actually had parents. They give “charity” a bad name.
Not to mention her scamming of donors to her phony charity that she claimed had tax-exempt status but didn't.
Wonder how much money went to Haitian ‘officials’ to spring these folks from jail.
Money that should have gone to the true victims.
The whole situation makes me sick. The govt of Haiti is corrupt through and through but they try to make scape goats out of people who were trying to help. I think the entire American relief effort should withdraw and let the corrupt govt take their knocks. To hell with them.
I suspect very little. Jim Allen’s family hired a legitimate lawyer, who will probably get paid (or got paid up front). But I actually doubt any Haitian judiciary officials got bribed for this. If there was any bribing going on, it was probably news organizations bribing jail officials for access to the prisoners for interviews. This case was just too high profile, with the prime minister involved, as well as quite senior US officials. There’s no point trying to bribe anybody who isn’t going to have authority to make good on the deal.
I’m still hoping this unofficial report is inaccurate, and that Silsby isn’t getting sprung yet, or is only getting sprung on condition she be taken into US custody and tried in the US under Haitian law.
If they were trying to help, they should have helped themselves by actually making sure these “orphans” didn’t have parents.
Or is the price of American aid allowing Americans to do what they like ?
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