Eight of the 10 American missionaries accused last month of kidnapping a group of Haitian children landed in Miami early Thursday after being freed Wednesday.
A U.S. Air Force C-130 cargo plane carrying the Americans landed just after midnight at Miami International Airport. The eight declined to answer reporters' questions and briskly walked into a hotel adjoining the airport, where they spent the night.
Most of the missionaries are from two churches in Idaho and are expected to travel home in the coming days.
The group's departure from Haiti began a day earlier, when Judge Bernard Saint-Vil said eight of the 10 could leave the country without conditions. That came after parents of the children testified they gave their children to the missionaries willingly, believing the Americans would give them a better life.
However, Judge Bernard Saint-Vil said he still wanted to interview the group's leader, Laura Silsby, 47, and Charisa Coulter, 24, about a visit they made to Haiti in December, before the earthquake struck, to inquire about obtaining orphans.
Coulter is diabetic and the judge signed an order Wednesday afternoon authorizing her hospitalization.
The entire group travelled to Haiti following the Jan. 12 quake and allegedly attempted to take 32 children, without the proper documents, to an orphanage they were setting up in neighbouring Dominican Republic, on Jan. 29. They were arrested at the border and charged with child endangerment and criminal association.
They have said they were not engaged in child trafficking but were on a humanitarian mission to save destitute children left homeless by the quake.
Silsby originally said they only took orphaned or abandoned children. However, it turned out that several of the children had parents who willingly handed them over to the group, in the hopes they would have a chance at a better life.
Meanwhile, U.S. Marshals are hunting for an accused human smuggler who recently acted as a legal adviser for the jailed missionaries and who previously lived in Canada.
They are looking for Jorge Puello, a 32-year-old U.S.-born man who entered the public spotlight following the missionaries' arrest.
Within days of their arrest, Puello presented himself to the public as a lawyer representing the jailed group. He brought them food, medicine and offered legal assistance, until it was revealed that he did not hold a licence to practise law.
A lawyer for nine of the defendants, Aviol Fleurant, said Puello absconded with the legal fees that he collected from the accused Americans' relatives.
"He was supposed to give me $40,000 and he gave me $10,000 and he stole $30,000 and he disappeared," Fleurant said.
After it was revealed last week that Puello was not a registered lawyer in the neighbouring Dominican Republic, the New York Times reported that he resembled an accused human trafficker who was wanted in El Salvador.
Puello initially denied that he had any connection to human trafficking and said he had never been to El Salvador. But he has since admitted that he is the same person. He called The Associated Press from an unknown location to indicate he is preparing to return to El Salvador to fight the charges against him.
In El Salvador, police said Puello would be detained once he steps foot inside the country on charges of leading a trafficking ring dedicated to prostituting Central American and Caribbean girls and women.
With reports from The Associated Press
