PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Haiti’s prime minister said Monday that 10 Americans who tried to take a busload of undocumented Haitian children out of the country knew that “what they were doing was wrong” and could be prosecuted in the United States.
Prime Minister Max Bellerive also told The Associated Press that his country is open to having the Americans face U.S. justice, since most government buildings — including Haiti’s courts — were crippled by the monster earthquake.
“It is clear now that they were trying to cross the border without papers. It is clear now that some of the children have live parents,” Bellerive said. “And it is clear now that they knew what they were doing was wrong.”
If they were acting in good faith — as the Americans claim — “perhaps the courts will try to be more lenient with them,” he said.
U.S. Embassy officials would not say whether Washington would accept hosting judicial proceedings for the Americans, who are mostly from Idaho. For now, the case remains firmly in Haitian hands, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in Washington.
U.S. diplomats have had “unlimited” access to the 10 detainees and will monitor any court proceedings, said Crowley. They have not yet been charged.
Haitian officials insist some prosecution is needed to help deter child trafficking, which many fear will flourish in the chaos caused by the Jan. 12 quake.
Members of the church group insisted they were only trying to save abandoned and traumatized children — but appeared to lack any significant experience with Haiti, international charity work or international adoption regulations.
The prime minister said some of those parents may have knowingly given their kids to the Americans in hopes they would reach the United States — a not uncommon wish for poor families in a country that already had an estimated 380,000 orphans before the quake.
Also Monday:
• U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the U.S. military would fly critically ill quake survivors to hospitals in several states to avoid overloading Florida.
• In Washington, the American Red Cross said a 1,000-flight waiting list for Haiti’s airport is limiting delivery of aid.
• In Haiti’s first organized political rally since the quake, hundreds of people demanded President Rene Preval resign.
