Christian group members could be charged with kidnapping minors

Ten members of a US Christian group charged with child-trafficking in Haiti could be tried in the United States and charged with kidnapping minors, the Haitian prosecutor office said.

"Whether they will have to follow the process here in Haiti or to follow the process in the United States, it is for the judge to decide... based on the law in Haiti," said Culture and Communications Minister Marie Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue.

Asked yesterday when the suspects would go before a judge, Ms Lassegue told a press conference here, "in principle today."

Haitian police seized five men and five women with US passports, as well as two Haitians, as they tried late on Friday to cross into the neighbouring Dominican Republic with 33 children aged between two months and 14 years.

The minister suggested the crippling earthquake that hit Haiti on January 12 meant the justice system was not capable of trying the Americans and as such could be transferred to the United States.

Ms Lassegue said the question was raised in a meeting earlier yesterday between Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive and US officials, including the US ambassador to Haiti, Kenneth Merten.

"As there are a lot of (government buildings) destroyed, we can discuss (the situation) with the United States" about whether they will face justice there, Ms Lassegue reported the Prime Minister as saying.

Laura Silsby, head of the Idaho-based group called New Life Children's Refuge, insisted Sunday that the group's aims were entirely altruistic.

"We came here literally to just help the children. Our intentions were good," she said from the police detention facility where they are being held near Port-au-Prince's international airport.

"We wanted to help those who lost parents in the quake or were abandoned," she said.