PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb. 8 (UPI) -- A Haitian lawyer representing 10 Americans accused of trying to take 33 orphans out the country says he has resigned.
Attorney Edwin Coq told CNN Sunday he has quit, and the broadcaster said it was unclear who would replace him as counsel for the 10 U.S. missionaries, who have been jailed in Port-au-Prince and charged with kidnapping.
"I know that they have been looking at other lawyers," Phyllis Allison, mother detainee Jim Allen, told CNN. "They don't know what to do."
Before he resigned, Coq reportedly said court hearings for the missionaries -- who have been split up into two groups -- were set for Monday and Tuesday. CNN said that while he was trying to get them released, Coq also blamed their leader, Laura Silsby, for their legal troubles.
"Except for Laura -- the group's leader, who took the responsibility to displace these 33 children, fully knowing she didn't have any legal document that would allow her to do so -- the other nine American citizens didn't know anything about what was going on and I remain convinced that they would not have given their accord," Coq told CNN.
The Americans claim they were only trying to help children leave the earthquake-ravaged country.
