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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Lawyer: Charges dropped against 9 missionaries

Associated Press
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — An attorney says Haiti has dropped kidnapping charges against nine of 10 U.S. missionaries arrested taking a busload of children out of the quake-ravaged country. The group’s leader, Laura Silsby, of Boise, remains jailed in Haiti. The other nine were released in February and early March and allowed to leave the country. Caleb Stegall, an attorney for three of them, told the Associated Press that a senior State Department official informed him that the charges were dropped. The AP was not immediately able to reach the presiding judge for confirmation. The Baptist missionaries were halted at the border of the Dominican Republic on Jan. 30 trying to take 33 children to an orphanage they were setting up in the neighboring country.