The main courthouse in Port-au-Prince , known as the Palace of Justice, was reduced to rubble by the January 12 earthquake, and its chief judge, Roc Cadet, died in the collapse along with many judicial employees.

Court records were buried in the earthquake.

The jails are filling up with suspects arrested for looting and other crimes in the aftermath of the quake.

A Haitian judge will resume questioning the missionaries, who were charged on Thursday with child abduction and criminal association.

The missionaries, most of whom belong to an Idaho-based Baptist church, have denied wrongdoing, saying they were only trying to help children left destitute by the quake.

But authorities subsequently found that many of the children had living parents who had voluntarily given them up in the hope that they would find a better life in the United States .