Commentary: Legal system will sort out case of arrested Haiti missionaries

Thousands of miles from the scene, there is no way to know the whole story about 10 Americans detained in earthquake-ravaged Haiti.

The legal and diplomatic processes will dispassionately sort out the facts about the detainees, which include five members of Meridian's Central Valley Baptist Church. Let the process work.

What we know now reflects a jumble of conflicting accounts, clouded by deep emotions.

The 10 Americans were attempting to move a busload of 33 children out of Haiti on Friday. Haitian authorities detained the Americans near the border of the Dominican Republic.

Church officials say their members were acting as rescuers and did not realize that they needed government paperwork to transport the children from an earthquake zone. The group had been working with Dominican authorities. Prior to their arrest, the group had planned to return to the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince to gather the paperwork, said Laura Silsby of Boise, one of the detainees.

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This story was originally published February 4, 2010 at 1:40 PM with the headline "Commentary: Legal system will sort out case of arrested Haiti missionaries."