Haitian Judge Recommends Release of 10 US Missionaries

Outside a court house in Port-au-Prince, the judge announced his recommendation for the Americans' release.  "I await the government's decision. They (the Americans) may decide to ask the lawyer to petition for conditional liberty, after I receive that, I will decide," he said.

The five men and five women say they only wanted to help 33 orphans left destitute by the earthquake that struck Haiti last month.

They were detained and jailed in Port-au-Prince January 29, after trying to take Haitian children to the Dominican Republic. The missionaries said they wanted to set up an orphanage in the neighboring country.

Shortly after the arrests, the group's leader, Laura Silsby,  told the Associated Press that she and her colleagues only took children from orphanages or from distant relatives to be placed for adoption.

But it is now known that many of the children have living parents. And some of these parents told the judge they willingly gave up their children on the promise they would receive an education and a better life