PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The Haitian attorney for 10 U.S. Baptists charged with child kidnapping tried to bribe the missionaries’ way out of jail and has been fired, the lawyer who hired him said Saturday night.
The Haitian lawyer, Edwin Coq, denied the allegation. He said the $60,000 he requested from the Americans’ families was his fee.
Jorge Puello, the attorney in the neighboring Dominican Republic retained by relatives of the 10 American missionaries after their arrest last week, told The Associated Press that he fired Coq on Friday night. He had hired Coq to represent the detainees at Haitian legal proceedings.
Coq orchestrated “some kind of extortion with government officials” that would have led to the release of nine of the 10 missionaries, Puello charged.
Coq denied the requested $60,000 payment amounted to a bribe.
The Americans said they were a humanitarian mission to rescue orphans after Haiti’s catastrophic Jan. 12 quake. But at least 20 of the children had living parents. Some told AP they gave the kids to the group because the missionaries promised to educate them at an orphanage in the Dominican Republic and said they would allow parents to visit. The Associated Press
