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View Full Version : Americans probed in Haiti child kidnap case



Cabdullahi
02-03-2010, 12:03 PM
A Haitian judge has questioned a group of ten US missionaries arrested while trying to abduct more than 30 children during the post-quake mayhem.

On Tuesday, the investigative magistrate questioned five female members of the group behind closed doors for several hours.

There were no lawyers at the judicial police headquarters in the devastated Haitian capital Port-au-Prince.

According to Haiti's Communications Minister, Marie-Laurence Lassegue, the men will be quizzed on Wednesday.

Lassegue said the judge will report to a district attorney who will later decide whether to press charges.

She also denied allegations that the Americans were being subject to "inhumane'' conditions.

The 10 Americans, all members of a US charity group called 'New Life Children's Refuge', have been detained since Friday when they tried to cross into the neighboring Dominican Republic with 33 children without the proper papers.

The children, who range in age from two months to 14 years, all have family members that survived the devastating January 12 earthquake.

On Monday, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive described them as "kidnappers" who clearly knew "what they were doing was wrong".

However, the missionaries deny they were engaged in child trafficking, and insist they were trying to help "vulnerable orphans".

Laura Silsby, a spokeswoman for the group from their cell, claims that her group had met a Haitian pastor by chance and that he had helped them gather the children.

According to Jeanne Bernard Pierre, the director of Haiti's Social Welfare Agency, the pastor had knocked on doors asking people if they wanted to give away their children.

"One child said to me: 'When they came knocking on our door asking for children, my mom decided to give me away because we are six children and by giving me away she would have only five kids to care for,'" he told the Associated Press.

This is while according to UN guidelines, two years should pass after a disaster before adoption can even be considered, giving time to exhaust all efforts to locate family members first.

The devastating January 12 earthquake in Haiti has killed up to 200,000 people and left more than a million homeless.


http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id...onid=351020706
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Supreme
02-03-2010, 07:55 PM
Even though I think the intentions of the Americans were good, you can't just take a child from his/her country in any circumstance. Surely they must've guessed this at least?
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