High-profile U.S. case tests Haitian justice system

By Joseph Guyler Delva

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Haiti's quake-shattered justice system, grappling with collapsed courts, destroyed records and homeless employees, would be hard-pressed to hold a high-profile trial for 10 Americans charged with kidnapping children, Haitian lawyers and rights advocates said on Sunday.

The detained American missionaries, most of whom belong to an Idaho-based Baptist church, were charged on Thursday with child abduction and criminal association. A judge was scheduled to resume a hearing on their case on Monday.

The main courthouse in Port-au-Prince, known as the Palace of Justice, was reduced to rubble by the January 12 earthquake, and the chief judge, Roc Cadet, died in the collapse along with many judiciary employees. Others are homeless and scattered.

The Ministry of Justice partially collapsed and Justice Minister Paul Denis had to be pulled from the rubble. He is now working from a small office behind the ministry.

Court records were buried in the debris and with the system effectively shut down, jails are filling with suspects arrested for looting and other crimes in the aftermath of the quake.

"It is very difficult to give a fair trial to the Americans right now. The whole system has been affected," said Renan Hedouville, head of Haiti's Lawyers Committee for Individual Rights. "Even the president of the court died."

"We should not be bluffing by pretending we have the means to try that case," he said.

Last week, judges managed to conduct a series of hearings for the arrested U.S. missionaries. But virtually no other hearings are being held by a system criticized even before the earthquake for keeping suspects jailed for months or years without hearings or trials.

"The justice system is dysfunctional," lawyer Rodrigue Dumas said. "I believe, in these conditions, the rights of the Americans will not be protected. Therefore the judgment cannot be fair."

DIPLOMATIC HEADACHE

Haitian authorities say the missionaries tried to take a busload of 33 children across the border into the Dominican Republic without papers proving the minors were orphans or any official permission to take them out of the country.

The case is diplomatically sensitive at a time when the United States is leading aid efforts following the earthquake last month that killed more than 200,000 people and left more than a million homeless.

Aid groups have flooded into Haiti to provide emergency food, water and medical services to survivors, and several thousand U.S. troops are on the ground to help U.N. peacekeepers and Haitian police with security.

The U.S. missionaries have denied wrongdoing, saying they were only trying to help children left destitute by the quake. But authorities subsequently found that many of the children intercepted had living parents who had voluntarily given them up in hope they would find a better life in the United States.

The U.S. government has said it is providing the Americans with consular access and monitoring their case, but has made clear it does not want to interfere.

Haitian President Rene Preval -- notably silent on the missionaries case while his prime minister, Jean-Max Bellerive, has called them "kidnappers" -- said on Saturday it was up to the judiciary to sort the matter out.

"The justice system is an independent power," he said. "The justice system is the one in charge of that."

THREE-MONTH INVESTIGATION?

Secretary of State for Criminal Affairs Claudy Gassant told Reuters there was "a possibility" Haiti could try the Americans, since the investigation could take three months.

"We think in three months we would have time to make sure everything is in place," he said. "Wherever the prosecutor and the judges gather to deliver justice is a tribunal. The tribunal is not the building."

The five U.S. men and five U.S. women were questioned last week and authorities said an investigating judge would continue the examination on Monday and Tuesday before deciding whether to release them or proceed with the case against them.

The missionaries received a visit in jail on Sunday from American Buddy Shipp, who described himself as a military medic and said he was there to assess their condition. He said they were suffering from rashes and infected mosquito bites and would be treated.

"I think the best thing to say is they're extremely resilient, extremely resilient," Shipp said.

(Additional reporting by Jesus Frias, Rodrigo Gutierrez and Mivida Domercant in Port-au-Prince, writing by Jim Loney; Editing by Pascal Fletcher)