Seven Europeans released in Chad

N’DJAMENA – Seven Europeans among 17 detained for over a week in an alleged attempt to kidnap 103 African children have been released and left the country with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

It was the second time since taking office in May that the French leader has intervened in a major international legal dispute. The Europeans – among them nine French citizens – were arrested October 25 when a charity calling itself Zoe’s Ark was stopped from flying the children to Europe.The group said the children were orphans from Sudan’s Darfur region where more than 200 000 have died in conflict since 2003.It said it intended to place them with host families.However, France’s Foreign Ministry and others have cast doubt on the group’s claims.Aid workers who interviewed the children said Thursday most of them had been living with adults they considered their parents and came from villages on the Chadian-Sudanese border region.The 17 originally detained included six French charity workers, three French journalists and the crew of the plane that the group planned to use to take the children to France.The crew was made up of Spaniards and a Belgian pilot.The six charity workers have been charged with kidnapping and are still in detention.The other four – three Spanish crew and the Belgian pilot of the plane _ are being held on accessory charges.Sarkozy met with Chad’s leader, Idriss Deby, trading back slaps and cheek kisses, before leaving Chad on his official jet with the three French journalists and four flight attendants from Spain.”They are free.It’s over.It’s the end,” said Jean-Bernard Padare, a lawyer for the group.The French president’s plane landed Sunday night at a Spanish air force base outside Madrid, where Sarkozy and the flight crew members were greeted by Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and relatives of the flight attendants.The group then continued on to France, landing at a military air base outside Paris.Friends and family greeted the three journalists on the tarmac with excited hugs.The journalists spoke only briefly to the media, saying they would hold a news conference yesterday.One of the three, Marie-Agnes Peleran, briefly defended the character of the charity’s workers, who are still detained in Chad.”They’re idealists but not criminals,” she told LCI television.Earlier, Deby said in Chad that he acted in his own volition when he freed the seven.”There is no pressure on Chad, nor on President Deby,” he said.Nampa-APThe Europeans – among them nine French citizens – were arrested October 25 when a charity calling itself Zoe’s Ark was stopped from flying the children to Europe.The group said the children were orphans from Sudan’s Darfur region where more than 200 000 have died in conflict since 2003.It said it intended to place them with host families.However, France’s Foreign Ministry and others have cast doubt on the group’s claims.Aid workers who interviewed the children said Thursday most of them had been living with adults they considered their parents and came from villages on the Chadian-Sudanese border region.The 17 originally detained included six French charity workers, three French journalists and the crew of the plane that the group planned to use to take the children to France.The crew was made up of Spaniards and a Belgian pilot.The six charity workers have been charged with kidnapping and are still in detention.The other four – three Spanish crew and the Belgian pilot of the plane _ are being held on accessory charges.Sarkozy met with Chad’s leader, Idriss Deby, trading back slaps and cheek kisses, before leaving Chad on his official jet with the three French journalists and four flight attendants from Spain.”They are free.It’s over.It’s the end,” said Jean-Bernard Padare, a lawyer for the group.The French president’s plane landed Sunday night at a Spanish air force base outside Madrid, where Sarkozy and the flight crew members were greeted by Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and relatives of the flight attendants.The group then continued on to France, landing at a military air base outside Paris.Friends and family greeted the three journalists on the tarmac with excited hugs.The journalists spoke only briefly to the media, saying they would hold a news conference yesterday.One of the three, Marie-Agnes Peleran, briefly defended the character of the charity’s workers, who are still detained in Chad.”They’re idealists but not criminals,” she told LCI television.Earlier, Deby said in Chad that he acted in his own volition when he freed the seven.”There is no pressure on Chad, nor on President Deby,” he said.Nampa-AP