Pardoned aid workers go free
2008-03-31 23:10
Paris - At least three of the six French aid workers convicted in a mass kidnapping case in Chad walked out of prison on Monday, hours after the Chadian president pardoned the group.
The three remaining aid workers were expected to leave prisons later Monday.
The six, from the charity Zoe's Ark, had tried to take 103 children to France in October, claiming they were acting out of humanitarian concern for orphans from Sudan's Darfur region. However, an investigation showed the children were Chadian, and that most had at least one parent or a close adult relative.
After convictions in Chad, the six were transferred to France to serve their eight-year sentences under a judicial agreement that converted forced labour into prison.
The case of the aid workers had inflamed anti-French sentiment in Chad, but President Idriss Deby raised the possibility of a pardon after French support helped him ward off a rebel attack on his capital in February.
He signed the decree earlier on Monday.
Television cameras captured a smiling Dominique Aubry, in charge of logistics for the group, leaving the prison in Caen, in the western Normandy region. He hugged a loved one in a group of some 30 waiting family and friends.
'He is with me'
Another aid worker, Alain Peligat, another logistics specialist, was freed from prison in the Aube region southeast of Paris.
"He is with me ... under a starry sky," his wife Christine said by telephone. "He intends to see his family again, find his mark," she said, adding that he hopes to return to his job as a lorry driver instructor.
A doctor in the group, Philippe Van Winkelberg, was freed in Draguinon, in southern France. He thanked friends and family and a support group pressing for his release for their help.
In Paris, the lawyer for the nurse among those convicted, Nadia Merini, hailed the pardon.
"I just learned this news with pleasure and relief," Mario Stasi told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "Wisdom has prevailed."
He said Merini would try to restart her career following her release.
Confusion for kids
Celine Lorenzon, a lawyer for Zoe's Ark head Eric Breteau, said the six had been in prison too long and added Breteau "can't take it anymore".
The children involved, meanwhile, spent months in an orphanage after their flight to France was stopped, and some have yet to be reunited with their families. Delays were linked to bureaucratic difficulties, Chadian government officials' 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.
The travails of Zoe's Ark members are not over despite their release from prison.
Four of the six face preliminary charges of fraud and irregular adoption and could be tried here if a French investigation concludes there is cause.
- AP