Baptist volunteers still in Haiti jail

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (BP) — Two weeks after their eight team members were released and allowed to return to the United States, two female Baptist volunteers remained in a Haiti jail March 5, optimistic they’ll be freed soon but still awaiting the final word from the judge overseeing the case.

Laura Silsby and Charisa Coulter, members of Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho, have been in jail since Jan. 29 when they and their team members were arrested on charges of child kidnapping and criminal association when they tried to take 33 children out of the earthquake-ravaged country and to a makeshift orphanage in the Dominican Republic. They allegedly did not have the proper paperwork.

Silsby, the group leader, told the Associated Press March 3 that she and Coulter expect to be released soon, and that they’d even come back to Haiti in the future.

The other eight team members were released from jail Feb. 18. Judge Bernard Saint-Vil kept Silsby and Coulter in jail because he had further questions for them.