Charity workers sentenced in France for child abduction

A French court on Monday sentenced six charity workers to eight years in prison after they were convicted in Chad of trying to abduct more than 100 children from the border with war-torn Darfur.

The founder and five members of French charity Zoe's Ark were sentenced to eight years hard labor in Chad last month on charges of attempted kidnapping, but were later repatriated to France where no such penalty exists.

Angry broke out in court as the sentences were read out, with the aid workers' families and friends attacking the judges as "criminals" and "bastards."

Zoe's Ark founder Eric Breteau, his partner Emilie Lelouch, logistics chief Alain Peligat, volunteer firefighter Dominique Aubry and doctor Philippe van Winkelberg were all present at the court in the Paris suburb of Creteil.

From inside the courtroom's glass-enclosed box, Lelouch raised a clenched fist in protest.

"This is a farce. I am ashamed to be French," said Souad Merimi, whose sister Nadia, the team nurse, was hospitalized for exhaustion after being repatriated and was not present to hear the verdict.

"Nadia doesn't deserve this, it's unacceptable," she said. "I really trusted the French justice system. This is a terrible blow."

The court was charged with converting the Chadian sentences into French law, without reviewing the verdict of the initial trial -- denounced by defense lawyers as a "farce."

It ruled that the Chadian conviction was equivalent to the French offence of "detention and sequestration of minors under 15 years of age," punishable by a maximum of life imprisonment.

Defense lawyers, who argued that the French court had a duty to repair "a terrible injustice," immediately announced their intention to appeal.

"This is unjust," charged Breteau's lawyer Gilbert Collard, saying: "The only solution is to appeal and to hope that [President Nicolas] Sarkozy gets involved."

Lawyer Mario Stasi, who represents Merimi, said the verdict was "a second conviction, just as iniquitous as the first."

During the four-day trial in Ndjamena, the Zoe's Ark members had claimed innocence, saying they were misled by middlemen into believing the children were orphans from the Sudanese region of Darfur which borders eastern Chad.

Breteau on hunger strike after he and the others were repatriated to France and detained in a prison outside Paris pending a sentencing decision.

But the French court ruled there had been no "blatant denial of justice" during their Chadian trial.