Haitian Judge Bernard Saint-Vil has announced he has dropped kidnapping charges against 10 American missionaries.

The group was arrested in January for trying to take a busload of children out of the country after the earthquake in January.

Nine were released in February, but their leader, Laura Silsby, remains in custody. She is charged with organizing the effort to take the children to an orphanage in the Dominican Republic. Should Silby be convicted, she faces up to three years in prison

The judge did not give an explanation for his decisions.

"Obviously, we think it's great," said Hiram Sasser, a lawyer with the Liberty Institute, a non-profit religious rights activist group based in Plano, Texas.

"It's partial good news," missionary Drew Culberth told KTKA in Topeka, Kan. "It's good for me, but not good news for Silsby."