NDJAMENA, Nov 10: A senior Chadian judge has slammed foreign pressure that he claimed led to the freeing of 11 Europeans held in the central African nation over a bid to illegally fly out 103 children presented as war orphans.

“Our judicial system has been trampled upon,” said Abdoulaye Cheikh, head of the Union of Judges of Chad, denouncing former colonial master France for arm-twisting Chad into submission.

“They should have been judged here. These decisions were taken elsewhere,” he said in an interview, accusing French President Nicolas Sarkozy of treating “Chad like a nation without any institutions, without any judiciary”. Three Spanish air crew and a Belgian pilot were freed on Friday on the orders of Chadian prosecutors probing a failed bid by French charity Zoe’s Ark to fly back children it said were orphans from Sudan’s war-wracked Darfur region.

The Spaniards, pilot Augustin Rey, co-pilot Sergio Munoz and cabin steward Daniel Gonzalez, took off for home with Spanish junior foreign affairs minister Bernadino Leon, who arrived on an airforce jet to collect them and meet Chad’s Prime Minister Nourradine Delwa Kassire Coumakoye.

This came after France’s Sarkozy made a lightning trip to Chad on Nov 4 to collect three French journalists and four Spanish air hostesses.

Although it was a Sunday, when courts are normally closed, a court was hastily opened to facilitate their lightning release and allow Sarkozy to return home in triumph.

There are only six Europeans now in jail cells and they are all members of the charity L’Arche de Zoe (Zoe’s Ark), which caused an international outcry and upset relations between Chad and France when it tried to fly the children aged between about one and 10 to foster homes in France.Their flight was stopped and the first arrests made on Oct 25.

Cheikh said the whole case “is a serious attack on the independence of the judiciary”. “The judge in question was harassed, the prosecutor and his deputies were harassed ... to such a degree that the first deputy public prosecutor buckled under,” he said.

“The laws of Chad are applicable to Chadians and foreigners. What was the justification for France’s head of state to intervene and so soon?” he said, adding that Sarkozy was aware that Zoe’s Ark was a “Mafia-like organisation”. Chadian judges are due to stage a “day of mourning” on Monday to vent their frustration, he said.

“We will gather before the court dressed in black gowns to display our discontent.” The mission by Zoe’s Ark has been widely condemned as illegal, foolish and amateurish, especially by large non-governmental organisations and UN agencies.—AFP