Charity case 'too big for us'

2007-11-18 12:07

Abeche - The local court that first took on a tangled child abduction scandal involving a French charity is a bare-bones affair: a single prosecutor, no clerk, no computers - and no defence lawyers.

"I've always felt the case was too big for a place like ours," said the prosecutor in question, Ahmad Daoud Chari, sitting in his tiny, shabby office in the law court of Abeche, the eastern Chadian city thrown into the international spotlight last month after Chadian authorities stopped French charity Zoe's Ark from flying 103 African children from Chad to France.

Initially involving 17 Europeans and four Chadians, the case was quickly transferred from Abeche to the country's capital, N'Djamena.

Eleven of the Europeans have since been released, but the Chadians and six French members of Zoe's Ark remain in jail as an investigation into alleged child abduction unfolds.

But Abeche's brief connection casts a bleak spotlight on this city's woefully inadequate justice system, in a region where vendettas and the seeming impunity of powerful figures reign.

"A number of the cases that we get are very serious ones: murders, assassinations, rapes, kidnappings," said Chari, a slender man with a soft voice and steady smile.

Short of hiring a lawyer in N'Djamena, the accused assume their own defence - a tall order in a region where many have scant knowledge of modern judicial proceedings.

Only Chad's criminal chamber brings attorneys along when it sits in Abeche, which occurs several times a year.

Not only lawyers are missing.

The court has no computer, no typewriter, no photocopy machine. No clerk either one recent day - the current one was out sick and the replacement had joined one of region's numerous rebel movements.

So it is Chari who fills in, armed with administrative documents and carbon copy paper.

"A large part of my time is devoted to administrative work," the prosecutor said.

The penury of human and material resources translates into a sluggish justice system, says Ramadan Ahmat, local representative for The Association for the Promotion of Fundamental Liberties in Chad (APLFT), one of Chad's main human rights groups.

"People are incarcerated for many years and complain of never getting a hearing," Ahmat said.

The rights group offers advice and help to local residents, many of whom turn to traditional forms of justice.

Delivering justice the modern way can also be a dangerous affair.

Described by one observer as "an honest and courageous man," prosecutor Chari regularly receives threats as he tries to destroy the virtual impunity enjoyed by so-called "untouchables" - notably members of the military and police and high-level officials.

- SAPA