French-Chadian Tensions

Paris formally requested the transfer of the six convicted French nationals immediately after they were sentenced on Wednesday, Dec 26. On Friday morning, Chadian Justice Minister, Albert Pahimi Padacke announced that he had "responded favorably" to the request.

France and Chad signed a judicial cooperation agreement in 1976 allowing for the repatriation of their respective citizens convicted in the other's country. Under the terms of that agreement, the charity workers will be flown back to France later on Friday.

As there is no penalty of forced labor in France, further legal proceedings will be necessary to adjust the sentences of the six L'Arche de Zoe (Zoe's Ark) aid workers.

The four men and two women were charged at the end of October as they tried to fly 103 children they claimed were Darfur orphans from Chad to Europe, where they were to be placed with foster families.

Children were not orphans

However, later investigations showed the children, aged between one and ten, were neither orphans nor from Sudan's troubled Darfur region. The children's parents told the court in Chad they had given up their children in the belief they would be educated in an eastern Chadian town.

In addition to hard labor, Chadian court officials fined the six French nationals over six million euros (nearly nine million dollars) in damages for the trauma caused to the children and their families during the incident.

Chief Judge Ngarhondo Djide said Sudanese refugee Souleimane Ibrahim Adam and Mahamat Dagot, a village leader near Chad's border with Sudan, were also guilty of complicity in the attempted kidnap. The two are to share the compensation costs with the six French nationals.

Adam and the head of L'Arche de Zoe, Eric Breteau were also found guilty of using forged papers.

Aid workers said they were misled

The aid workers claimed during their trial, which began last Friday, that they had been misled by Chadian agents who had helped facilitate the orphans' move.

Toward the end of the trial, Breteau apologized to the parents of the children for their separation, but insisted that he and his colleagues had acted in good faith when they tried to fly the children from eastern Chad.

Chadian Chief Prosecutor Beassoum Ben Ngassoro had requested that the six French citizens be sentenced to between seven and 11 years in jail. "I don't have a single doubt that the accused are guilty," he said in court in the Chadian capital Ndjamena on Wednesday.

"They came with apparently humanitarian intentions, but rapidly switched to the non-humanitarian," the prosecutor added.

France to lead peace-keeping force in Chad

The scandal has led to tensions between France and Chad. French President Nicolas Sarkozy's call to have the six aid workers tried in France sparked outrage and protests in the Chadian capital Ndjamena.

Parallel to the controversy, Paris has been preparing to spearhead a 3,500-strong EU peacekeeping force in eastern Chad to protect refugee camps in the region bordering Darfur in western Sudan.