By FRANK BAJAK, Associated Press Writer Frank Bajak, Associated Press Writer – 7 mins ago

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Ten U.S. Baptist missionaries were charged with kidnapping Thursday for trying to take 33 children out of Haiti to a hastily arranged refuge just as officials were trying to protect children from predators in the chaos of a great earthquake.

The Haitian lawyer who represents the 10 Americans portrayed nine of his clients as innocents caught up in a scheme they did not understand. But attorney Edwin Coq did not defend the actions of the group leader, Laura Silsby, though he continued to represent her.

"I'm going to do everything I can to get the nine out. They were naive. They had no idea what was going on and they did not know that they needed official papers to cross the border," Coq said. "But Silsby did."

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Silsby had begun planning last summer to create an orphanage for Haitian children in the Dominican Republic. When the earthquake struck she recruited other church members to help kick her plans into high gear. The 10 Americans rushed to Haiti and spent a week gathering children for their project.

And the extraordinary account of Richard Pickett, a web designer from Kentucky , and his wife Malinda certainly raises questions about Mrs Silsby's intentions.

The Picketts were in the final stages of adopting three Haitian children when, with the paperwork approved, the quake struck. Twelve days later, Mr Pickett travelled to Haiti to collect the children. While he was away, his wife received three calls from Mrs Silsby, of whom the couple had no prior knowledge, offering to pick up the children herself when she arrived in Haiti.

"My wife was very clear with each time that under absolutely no circumstances was she to try and do that," Mr Pickett told The Sunday Telegraph. "In fact, I was already with the kids in a refugee centre by then. But we have since heard from the orphanage that she turned up, claiming to be our friend and asking for the children."

He believes Mrs Silsby had obtained their name from an agency involved in adoptions from Haiti. And orphanage workers have said that she "cried in frustration" when she was rebuffed by her requests for children from other establishments. It was then, it appears, that she lead the group to the village where parents say they were encouraged to hand over the children.

Mrs Silsby was initially keen to give interviews from behind bars as she insisted that her team was doing God's work. She said that they thought they had permission to take the children out of the country and believed they were orphans, but had no plans to put them up for adoption in case Haitian relatives wanted to visit them at the motel she was leasing in the Dominican Republic.

Each of those assertions has apparently been comprehensively undermined by statements from her translators, some of the children's parents, Dominican officials and the brochures and mission statement she herself wrote. And as the week went on, Mrs Silsby stopped talking and the group instead sang hymns and prayed loudly when journalists shouted questions at them.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – The Haitian lawyer for 10 U.S. Baptists charged with child kidnapping tried to bribe the missionaries' way out of jail and has been fired, the attorney who hired him said Saturday night.

The Haitian lawyer, Edwin Coq, denied the allegation. He said the $60,000 he requested from the Americans' families was his fee.

Jorge Puello, the attorney in the neighboring Dominican Republic retained by relatives of the 10 American missionaries after their arrest last week, told The Associated Press that he fired Coq on Friday night. He had hired Coq to represent the detainees at Haitian legal proceedings.

Coq orchestrated "some kind of extortion with government officials" that would have led to the release of nine of the 10 missionaries, Puello charged.

"He had some people inside the court that asked him for money, and he was part of this scheme," Puello said.

Coq denied the requested $60,000 payment amounted to a bribe.

"I have worked for 10 people for four days working all hours," he said. "Look at what hour I'm working now, responding to these calls. I have the right to this money."

On Friday, Coq had told the AP that he was working for no fee.

Puello said Coq initially requested $10,000 but kept asking for bigger and bigger amounts. He said that when Coq reached $60,000, he said he could guarantee it would lead to the Americans' release.

A magistrate charged the group's members Thursday with child kidnapping and criminal association for trying to take 33 children out of earthquake-ravaged Haiti without the proper documents.

The Americans said they were a humanitarian mission to rescue orphans after Haiti's catastrophic Jan. 12 quake.

But at least 20 of the children had living parents. Some told the AP they gave the kids to the group because the missionaries promised to educate them at an orphanage in the Dominican Republic and said they would allow parents to visit.

Coq said Thursday that the group's leader, Laura Silsby of Meridian, Idaho, deceived the others by telling them she had the proper documents to remove the children from Haiti.

The Dominican consul in Haiti, Carlos Castillo, has said he warned Silsby on Jan. 29, the day the group was detained at the border, that she lacked the required papers and risked being arrested for child trafficking.

Asked if Silsby had deceived the other nine Baptists by assuring them she had the proper papers, Puello said Saturday, "I believe that is true."

NBC News reported Saturday that there are divisions within the jailed group.

It said some of the missionaries handed an NBC producer a note through bars of their holding cell earlier in the day that listed the names of all of them but Silsby and her former nanny and partner in the orphanage, Charisa Coulter.

"We only came as volunteers. We had nothing to do with any documents and have been lied to," NBC quoted the note as saying. "Please we fear our lives."