A decision on whether to release two Americans charged with kidnapping in Haiti could come within a week, their lawyers said Friday after the judge presiding over the case questioned them.
Eight of 10 Americans charged in the case were released on Wednesday and returned to the United States, but Judge Bernard Saint-Vil ordered the other two to remain for further investigation.
The remaining two are Laura Silsby, the head of the group of Baptist missionaries, and her close confidante Charisa Coulter.
All 10 were arrested on January 29 as they sought to take a busload of children across the border into the Dominican Republic in the aftermath of Haiti’s devastating earthquake.
Saint-Vil questioned the remaining two about why they visited Haiti in December prior to the disaster.
Their lawyer, Aviol Fleurant, said they came to Haiti to deliver school supplies and toys to an orphanage in the country’s northeast.
The pastor at the orphanage, Daniel Paul, spoke to the judge by phone, said Fleurant, who claimed the pastor confirmed the Americans’ explanation.
Saint-Vil is seeking to visit Paul’s orphanage and another one belonging to Silsby in the Dominican Republic.
The judge indicated he could visit both sites this weekend and issue a ruling within a week.
“I think they will be home after one week,” Fleurant said after the hearing.
The missionaries from the New Life Children’s Refuge sought to take the 33 children across the border to the Dominican Republic without authorization.
They at first presented the children as quake orphans but it quickly emerged that many of the children still had parents alive.
