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Zoe's Ark workers back in France, sentences unclear

Six French charity workers convicted of trying to kidnap 103 children in Chad arrived on Friday back in France where prosecutors were mulling how to adjust their hard labor sentences.

On arrival at Le Bourget airport outside Paris on Friday night, French justice officials reminded the six of the sentences handed down to them by a Chadian court two days earlier, a legal source said.

The members of Zoe's Ark were convicted on Wednesday of attempted abduction for having tried to fly the children to France, claiming they were war orphans from the Sudanese region of Darfur, which borders eastern Chad.

They were each sentenced to eight years' hard labor, while a Chadian and a Sudanese who worked as intermediaries were jailed for four years for complicity in the operation.

The six were expected to appear before a French prosecutor before a court was due to adjust their sentences. Forced labor is not a French practice, but commuting it to jail terms will require Chadian judicial approval.

The charity workers may also face charges related to a separate judicial inquiry opened in Paris in October, targeting the charity for possible swindling and for "illegal exercise of an intermediary activity with adoption in mind."

The wife of one of the condemned men said they were to be incarcerated at Fresnes Prison, outside Paris, where there is also a penitentiary hospital should any of the six -- who launched a hunger strike on Thursday to protest their verdicts -- require medical attention.

Christine Peligat, who is married to Zoe's Ark logistics coordinator Alain Peligat, said she had been informed of this by the justice ministry. The ministry offered no comment on the matter.

According to Peligat, the six charity workers will spend between 10 and 15 days at the Fresnes institution before being sent to prisons nearer their homes.

Authorization for the departure of the French nationals from Chad came earlier on Friday from Chadian Justice Minister Albert Pahimi Padacke, who said: "I have responded favorably to the transfer request from France."

The charity workers protested innocence throughout the trial, saying they had been misled about the children by middlemen.
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