Global General

Eight freed Americans leave for home

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-02-18 15:20

PORT-AU-PRINCE: Eight of the 10 Americans who were charged with child kidnapping in Haiti left for the United States Wednesday evening.

Some of eight American missionaries walk out of jail accompanied by their lawyer (L) at a police station in Port-Au-Prince on February 17, 2010. The missionaries who faced child kidnapping charges in Haiti left the quake-devastated nation on a flight home to the United States, witnesses said. [Agencies]

They were freed by a judge earlier in the day, as the judge found no evidence of criminal intent among them. But the other two Americans were held for further questioning about their previous trips to Haiti.

The 10 Americans, who were arrested on Haiti's border with the Dominican Republic when they tried to cross the border with a busload of 33 children they said were orphaned by the Jan. 12 earthquake, were charged in early February with child kidnapping and criminal association for illegally trying to take children out of Haiti.

The Haitian authorities said they lacked proper authorization to take the Haitian children out of the country.

The Americans denied any ill intentions, saying they were taking the children to a converted orphanage in Cabarete, the Dominican Republic.