PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP) -- Five of 10 American Baptists charged with kidnapping and conspiracy appeared at a Haitian court yesterday for hearings on their attempt to take a busload of children to the neighbouring Dominican Republic.

Laura Silsby, the group's leader, was among those taken to the court for hearings, a judicial source close to the case told AFP. The other five would go to court on Tuesday.

"We will get into the details today," the source said, adding that any request to transfer the case to the United States would be studied before a decision is finalised.

The 10 Americans from Idaho will then be heard together tomorrow to iron out any potential contradictions in their accounts of the incident.

Officials also said they hope to interview most of the children's parents before the end of the week. The head prosecutor can then decide whether to grant them a conditional release.

The judge then has three months to examine the case and reach a final decision.

Edwin Coq, a Haitian lawyer who had been seeking to free the Americans arrested near the border after Haiti's devastating quake, said he quit the case on Saturday after being accused of trying to bribe the judge.

He strongly denied the bribery accusation.

His former clients have claimed they meant no ill-intent in taking children they thought were orphans, but some of the children's parents have said they had reached a deal to give away their kids.

The case has distracted attention from the stumbling efforts to help Haitians rebuild their lives amid the ruins left by the January 12 quake, which killed more than 200,000 people.

The 10 Americans belong to the New Life Children's Refuge, a Christian religious organisation whose Haiti mission statement says they planned to "rescue Haitian orphans abandoned on the streets, makeshift hospitals or from collapsed orphanages".

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