Dominican Republic police has arrested a legal adviser to a group of U.S. missionaries detained in Haiti for several weeks on allegations of child kidnapping, Reuters reports. Jorge Puello Torres, a citizen of Dominican Republic, is wanted in El Salvador for human trafficking. He was nabbed while in a Santo Domingo car wash late March 18 on a warrant issued by international police organization Interpol.
The missionaries of a Baptist church in Idaho - nine of 10 have been released - attested that they were only trying to help children orphaned by the Jan. 12 earthquake. But the supposed orphans, in fact, still had living parents, who said they gave their children to the American missionaries so their offspring can gain education and a better life, the Reuters report indicates.