Three More Months: Americans in Haiti Wait

Feb. 5, 2010— -- The Idaho Baptists being held in Haiti could wait as long as three months to hear their fate after they were charged with child kidnapping and criminal conspiracy Thursday, according to a lawyer representing the group.

The 10 missionaries went to court Thursday with hopes of being released. Their bags were packed, and their lawyer in the Dominican Republic optimistically had chartered them a plane.

"We expect that God's will will be done and we will be released," the group's leader, Laura Silsby, said on her way into court. "And we are looking to what God is going to do."

But after hearing the child kidnapping and conspiracy charges, a lawyer representing the missionaries laid the blame on Silsby, not the other nine Americans, saying she should have known she could not remove the children without documentation, according to The Associated Press.

"I'm going to do everything I can to get the nine out. They were naive. They had no idea what was going on and they did not know that they needed official papers to cross the border. But Silsby did," Edwin Coq told reporters after the hearing.

Carlos Castillo, a Dominican Republic consul general, said he warned the group about what could happen if they did not have the necessary paperwork.

"Don't try to cross the border without the proper permits because you're going to be accused of the intent of child trafficking … I was really clear to her," Castillo said.

Each count of child kidnapping could bring 15 years and nine years for each count of criminal association.

Family members of the Americans released a statement Thursday evening expressing worry over the missionaries.

"Obviously, we do not know details about what happened and didn't happen on this mission," the statement read. "However, we are absolutely convinced that those who were recruited to join this mission traveled to Haiti to help, not hurt, these children. We are pleading to the Haitian prime minister to focus his energies on the critical tasks ahead for the country and to forgive mistakes that were made by a group of Americans trying to assist Haiti's children."