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French aid workers freed after pardon by Chadian leader

All six French aid workers convicted in a mass kidnapping in Chad were freed on Monday in France, hours after the Chadian president pardoned the group, the French Justice Ministry said.

The six, from a charity called Zoe's Ark, had tried to spirit 103 children to France in October, claiming they were orphans from Sudan's Darfur region. However, an investigation showed that the children were Chadian, and that most had at least one parent or a close adult relative.

In December, a Chadian court convicted the six on kidnapping charges and sentenced them to eight years of forced labor. They were sent to France on Dec. 28 where the sentence was converted to eight years in prison.

Justice Ministry spokesman Guillaume Didier said the six were freed on Monday evening. They had been held in prisons scattered around France. Four remain subject to a separate judicial probe in France.

Zoe's Ark leader Eric Breteau and his girlfriend, Emelie Le Louche, apparently left Fresnes prison, south of Paris, by a side door, escaping some 30 journalists and photographers at the main gate. Didier said the pair left at about 9:30pm.

One member of the group, Nadia Merimi, a nurse, was freed but remained at Villejuif Hospital, where she was being treated for an unspecified illness, a judicial official said.

"Wisdom has prevailed," Merimi's lawyer, Mario Stasi, said after the pardon was announced.

The case had inflamed anti-French sentiment in Chad, but Chadian President Idriss Deby raised hopes for the six after French support helped him ward off a rebel attack on his capital in February. Days later, on Feb. 7, he said he was "ready to pardon."

He signed the pardon decree on Monday.

The 103 children gathered by the group in the eastern Chad town of Abeche spent months in an orphanage after their flight to France was stopped. Some have yet to be reunited with their families. Delays were linked to bureaucratic difficulties, Chadian government's determination to ensure the children were returned to the correct guardians and insecurity in eastern Chad.

One source of the problem was that Zoe's Ark had left little paperwork identifying the children, UN officials involved in caring for the children had said.

Four of the six released face preliminary charges of fraud and irregular adoption and could be tried if a French investigation concludes there is cause.

Deby had said that he wanted the children's families to receive a total of 8 million euros (US$12 million) in compensation, though his pardon would not be conditional on receiving money. He also said that if France would not pay the compensation, then his government would.
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