A Haitian judge said today some of the 10 US missionaries arrested on charges of child kidnapping would be released, nearly three weeks after they were caught trying to take a group of children out of the quake-stricken country.

THE Haitian lawyer for 10 US Baptists charged with child kidnapping tried to bribe the missionaries’ way out of jail and has been fired, the attorney who hired him has said.

Desperate parents in a struggling village perched above Haiti’s earthquake-flattened capital said they gave their children willingly to a group of US missionaries to take them to a better life.

Ten Americans who tried to take a busload of undocumented Haitian children out of the country knew what they were doing was wrong and could be prosecuted in the US, Haiti’s prime minister said.

HAITIAN officials said last night they are thinking of sending a group of US Baptists home for prosecution after they were arrested trying to take 33 children out of the country without government permission.