US aid worker released from Haitian prison

AN American aid worker has been released from a notoriously overcrowded Haitian prison after a judge apparently cleared him of allegations that he kidnapped an infant from a hospital where he worked as a volunteer.

Paul Waggoner was receiving medical treatment at an undisclosed location following his release from the National Penitentiary in Port-au-Prince, Materials Management Relief Corps, the aid group he co-founded after the January 12 earthquake, the group said in a statement.

Earlier, his supporters feared he could get cholera or some other illness in a prison long criticised by human rights groups for its abysmal conditions.

The group said a judge declined to bring kidnapping charges against him.

Waggoner’s lawyer, Gary Lisade, said he had submitted to a judge a death certificate from the hospital where the infant he was accused of kidnapping died. He also gave the court an affidavit from the US doctor who treated the 15-month-old boy.

“We are so glad it’s finally over,” Paul Sebring, the other co-founder of the group, said, describing conditions at the prison as “horrific.”

Waggoner, who was living in Nantucket, Massachusetts, before selling his construction business and moving to Haiti following the earthquake, had been in custody for 18 days while authorities investigated the allegations of Frantz Philistin, a Haitian man whose son was treated at a hospital in Petionville in February.

Sebring and others said Waggoner was helping to move supplies at the hospital and was not involved with the baby’s treatment. The doctor said in his affidavit that Philistin declined to take the body, saying he couldn’t afford to bury it.

Later, he made accusations against Waggoner, at one point accusing him of putting the infant into a Voodoo trance to kidnap him and sell his organs.

Sebring said Materials Management Relief Corps would continue its work in Haiti. “This has been a tremendously difficult time for MMRC but it is not the end of us. We will continue to help those that cannot help themselves.

“I will not leave (Waggoner’s) side until he has made a full recovery from his time in the Haitian National Penitentiary.”

Waggoner, who grew up in Florida, suggested he will step back from his work in Haiti — at least for now.