Aid worker held over ‘Haiti baby kidnap’

AN AMERICAN who sold his construction business and travelled to Haiti to help earthquake victims was in jail yesterday as authorities investigated allegations he kidnapped an infant.

Paul Waggoner, co-founder of a group that provides medical supplies and transportation for aid missions, is expected to be transferred to the overcrowded and dangerous national penitentiary. He could spend the next few months there over accusations he and his fellow volunteers say are fabricated.

Waggoner and members of his organisation, Materials Management Relief Corps, said the 15-month-old boy he is accused of taking actually died at a hospital with fever and gastrointestinal distress in February.