Lawyer: Charges Off Against 9 Missionaries

Port-au-Prince, Haiti - A lawyer says Haiti has dropped kidnapping charges against nine of the 10 U.S. missionaries who were arrested trying to take a busload of children out of the earthquake-ravaged country.

The group's leader, Laura Silsby of Boise, Idaho, remained in jail Friday in Haiti.

The other nine were let go in February and early March.

Jim Allen of Amarillo, Texas, was among the group of missionaries freed Feb. 17.

Caleb Stegall, an attorney for three of them, told The Associated Press on Thursday that a senior State Department official informed him of the dropped charges.

The AP was not immediately able to reach the presiding judge for confirmation.

The Baptist missionaries were halted Jan. 30 trying to take 33 children to an orphanage they were setting up in the Dominican Republic following the Jan. 12 quake.