A group of 10 US missionaries detained in Haiti were charged with child abduction and criminal conspiracy for allegedly trying to smuggle 33 children out of the country.
Haitian deputy prosecutor Jean Ferge Joseph told the five men and five women at the hearing: “That judge can free you, but he can also continue to hold you for further proceedings.”
If convicted they face lengthy prison terms. When detained on the border last Friday, they said they were taking the children to a Dominican Republic orphanage. Haitian authorities said all ten Americans, who range in age from 18 to 55, lacked the authorization needed to take the children out of the country.
It has emerged some of the youngsters had parents who were alive.
“We didn’t know what we were doing was illegal. We did not have any intention to violate the law. But now we understand it’s a crime,” said Paul Robert Thompson, a pastor.
After the hearing the 10 missionaries were taken back to the prison where they have been kept since Friday.
Amid chaotic scenes, the group was bundled into a van outside the court.
“I feel good,” the group’s leader Laura Silsby told reporters. “I trust in God.”
Two possibilities: Either 1.these actually are a bunch of well-intentioned, harmless but irresponsible and dimwitted genuine missionaries trying to do what they are claiming and for some reason ignored the warnings to not try to transport Haitian kids out of the country without the paperwork; or 2.they are part of a C.I.A. child trafficking ring that supplies kids to wealthy pedophiles for money and as blackmail leverage (think politicians.)
The second possibility cannot be dismissed out of hand especially if one considers the company DynCorp which was in the 1990s proven to be involved in trafficking of sex slaves in Bosnia yet still gets awarded U.S. government contracts including as recently as last year. It’s a nasty subject nobody likes to talk about but it isn’t going away. Google the name “Johnny Gosch” to start your horrid journey down this rabbit hole.