Chad Court Sentences French to 8 Years Hard Labour

Chad`s government had faced heavy popular pressure to punish the Zoe`s Ark members with an exemplary sentence.

Six French aid workers were sentenced to eight years of hard labour each after a court in Chad found them guilty on Wednesday of trying to kidnap 103 children from the African country.

The court in the capital N'Djamena handed down its sentence on the fourth day of the trial of six members of the French humanitarian group Zoe's Ark, who were arrested in October for trying to fly the children, aged one to 10, to Europe.

Chad's government had faced heavy popular pressure to punish the Zoe's Ark members with an exemplary sentence.

But there is widespread expectation that a diplomatic deal between Paris and N'Djamena could soon return the six accused to France, either through bilateral judicial accords or a pardon granted by Chadian President Idriss Deby.

Since the trial opened on Friday, the six had persistently rejected the abduction and fraud charges against them.

They testified that they believed the children were orphans from Sudan's war-torn Darfur region whom they intended to give to European families for fostering. They said international law justified the humanitarian operation.

"I maintain what I've said since the start of this affair ... our intention was to fetch orphans from Darfur," Zoe's Ark's leader, Eric Breteau, told the court.

Defence lawyers had accused the Chadian court of rushing through the trial under political pressure from Paris.

France is an ally of Deby and has a military contingent stationed in the landlocked former French colony.

French troops have been supporting Deby's forces against eastern rebels and will provide the bulk of a European Union peacekeeping force due to be deployed in east Chad in January.

CONFLICTING ARGUMENTS

Chad's government has said the six, on trial along with three Chadians and one Sudanese accused as accomplices, did not have permission to take the children out of the country.

Prosecutors said the group, led by Breteau and Emilie Lelouch, duped parents in eastern Chad into handing over their children with promises of schooling.

State lawyer Philippe Houssine said the sentences requested by the prosecution were justified because Breteau and Lelouch had shown no remorse.

"On the contrary, he (Breteau) displays an arrogant, insolent attitude, which means this is a person who is ready to do it again if asked," he told reporters.

Janine Lelouch, mother of Emilie Lelouch, told France's LCI television: "I think we have to hope that they're transferred quickly to France because they can't stand it much longer."

Defence lawyer Gilbert Collard said the accused were very depressed. "They feel the abyss just a few centimetres away, they are lost, completely lost," he said.

The French have blamed their local intermediaries for misleading them over the identity of the children, who Chadian and U.N. officials said were mostly not orphans and came from villages in Chad on its eastern border with Darfur.

The prosecutor requested civil damages to be awarded for each of the 103 children in the case -- 40 million CFA francs ($88,000) each, totalling 4.12 billion CFA francs ($9 million) in all.