N’DJAMENA, Nov 4: A Chadian judge on Sunday ordered the release of seven Europeans jailed over a charity’s attempt to bring more than 100 children to France as French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrived in N’Djamena.
The seven were among 17 Europeans and four Chadians accused of attempted kidnapping after the Zoe’s Ark charity was stopped from flying 103 children out of the eastern Chadian city of Abeche on Oct 25.
The charity said it wanted to save orphans from the bloody war in Sudan’s Darfur region, across the border from Chad, and place them in the care of host families in France.
But UN humanitarian agencies and the Red Cross cast doubt on the claims, saying most of the children were actually Chadian and may not have been orphans at all.
A Chadian judge on Sunday issued an order allowing three French journalists and four Spanish air hostesses to leave Chad, said lawyer Jean-Bernard Padare.
The seven “will come to collect their personal belongings at the court in N’Djamena and then go to the airport,” he said.
After holding talks with President Idriss Deby Itno, Sarkozy was expected to return home later in the day with the seven Europeans, scoring a diplomatic coup after the affair threatened to sour relations with Chad, a former colony that now hosts a large French military base.
The six remaining French nationals — all workers for the Zoe’s Ark charity — face charges of attempted kidnapping, while three other Spanish flight crew members are accused of complicity.
A 75-year-old Belgian pilot who flew the children from the Sudanese border to Abeche has also been charged with complicity.
If convicted, they could be sentenced to between five and 20 years of forced labour.
The Chadian president had accused the charity of trying to “sell” the children to “paedophile NGOs” and attempting to “kill them for their organs” in remarks that brought considerable tension to relations with France.
The French Le Parisien newspaper on Sunday quoted a Chadian father who put his three children in the care of Zoe’s Ark after he was told that they would be educated in a newly-built school.
“They never said they would take away our children,” said Arbab.
The Zoe’s Ark affair has embarrassed the French government as it prepares to take charge of a European peacekeeping mission to protect refugees in Chad and in the neighbouring Central African Republic.
The three journalists who were released were Marc Garmirian of the Capa television news agency, Jean-Daniel Guillou of the Synchro X photo agency and Marie-Agnes Peleran from France 3 television.—AFP
