French Workers Get 8 Years’ Hard Labor in Darfur Orphans Case
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
N’DJAMENA, Chad — A Chadian court convicted six French aid workers of trying to kidnap 103 African children and sentenced them yesterday to eight years of forced labor.
The sentence came on the fourth day of the trial of the workers for the charity Zoe’s Ark, who were charged with fraud and kidnapping after authorities stopped a convoy with 103 children that the group was planning to fly to France.
The defendants maintain they were driven by compassion to help orphans in Darfur, which borders Chad. An uprising that flared in Darfur in 2003 has led to the deaths of more than 200,000 people and forced 2.5 million to flee.
But subsequent investigations showed most of the 103 children that Zoe’s Ark was planning to fly out were Chadians who lived with at least one parent or close adult relative.
“This is a sentence that comes under the category of a judicial mascarade,” Celine Lorenzon, a lawyer for the six defendants, said on France-Info radio.
Jeannine Lelouch, mother of detained Zoe’s Ark member Emilie Lelouch, said she was “devastated” by the verdict.
“You have to hope that they’ll quickly return to France because they aren’t holding up on their feet anymore,” she said.
Prosecutor Beassoum Ben Ngassoro had requested the aid workers receive seven to 11 years of forced labor.
Earlier yesterday, defense lawyer Gilbert Collard said he was happy to see the prosecution had recommended less than the maximum 20 years. But, he added, the prosecution’s recommendations “would be excessive.”
The French Foreign Ministry in Paris declined to comment but said it would ask Chadian authorities to transfer the six convicted to France. The countries have a bilateral judicial agreement that could allow for such a transfer.
The case has embarrassed France and sparked protests in this central African country, a former French colony.
Aid workers say their already difficult job along Darfur’s border has been complicated by the suspicion some Chadians now have toward all foreigners professing to offer help. Days after the Zoe’s Ark workers were arrested, the Republic of Congo announced it was suspending all international adoptions because of the events in Chad.
