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PORT-AU-PRINCE: Ten US missionaries charged with child abduction and conspiracy faced Friday a long wait behind bars for trial over seeking to smuggle 33 children out of quake-hit Haiti.
The Americans from an Idaho-based charity were formally charged Thursday with "kidnapping minors and criminal association," said their lawyer Edwin Coq, after his earlier hopes were dashed that most of the group might be freed.
Visibly upset, the missionaries had arrived for the hearing in good spirits with their luggage already packed to leave, bowed their heads in prayer afterward in the back of a jeep as they were returned to police detention.
The group of five men and five women, who have been held for a week, could now face a long pre-trial detention as Haitian law gives the prosecution three months to draw up its case.
Justice Minister Paul Denis told AFP he saw "no reason" why the group from the Baptist charity New Life Children's Refuge would be sent to the United States for trial. "It is Haitian law that has been violated," he said.
"It is up to the Haitian authorities to hear and judge the case. I don't see any reason why they should be tried in the United States."
If convicted, the missionaries could face nine years in prison on child kidnapping charges and further jail time for conspiracy.
As they were escorted into the jeep, some tried to cover their faces with a black jacket. But Haitian journalists whipped it off, and one even threw a stone before being stopped by police.
The case has triggered outrage in the impoverished nation where child-trafficking was already rife well before the 7.0-magnitude quake struck on January 12.
And in a grim reminder of the devastation left in the wake of the massive earthquake, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said the death toll has now reached 212,000 and over 300,000 people have been injured, while the number of homeless may be far higher than the one million estimated by authorities.
Bellerive told CNN that the toll, already the highest on record from any natural disaster in the Americas, was likely to rise "a little bit" higher as recovery crews pull bodies from locations where demolition had been delayed while rescue teams searched for survivors.
The missionaries have denied any ill-intent, saying they only wanted to help those children left orphaned or abandoned by the quake that ravaged the Caribbean nation.
Among the destitute are thousands of children who are seen as particularly vulnerable to traffickers and child predators.
The missionaries were detained on January 29 as they attempted to cross into the Dominican Republic with a busload of children aged from two months to 12 years.
But it has emerged that many of the children still had parents or relatives, some of whom may have personally handed the youngsters over to the Americans.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it was "unfortunate" that "this group of Americans took matters into their own hands." The State Department meanwhile said it continues to provide consular assistance and monitor developments in the case.
Coq, the group's lawyer, said a Haitian pastor had authorized the Baptists to take the children out. "They were missionaries who came to help," he said.
US Ambassador Kenneth Merten told journalists that US officials were in talks with the Haitian government.
"What we like to do is to make sure they are being treated according to the law," he said.
According to government prosecutor Mazan Fortil, it remains unclear whether the 10 would be tried in the Haiti. "We have to apply Haitian law. The case will be sent before a judicial panel, to open the investigation," Fortil said.
Bellerive has charged that the case is becoming "a distraction" for Haitians with people "talking more now about 10 people than about one million people suffering on the streets."
He called the earthquake "a disaster on a planetary scale."
Some 250,000 homes have been destroyed and 30,000 businesses lost, he said.
With tensions running high in the ruined capital Port-au-Prince over the slow aid effort, angry Haitians have staged protests in the streets demanding food, water and jobs.
The United States, which is spearheading the relief efforts, has deployed 20,000 troops, helicopters and transport planes, but coordination problems and the sheer scale of the disaster has hampered aid distribution.
- AFP/sc
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