Free but not innocent

The six members of the French charity, l'Arche de Zoé have been released from prison after they were granted a long-expected pardon by the Chadian president, Idriss Déby, on Monday.

They were convicted last December by a court in N'Djamena, the capital of the former French African colony, of trying to kidnap 103 children two months earlier and fly them to France (see related story "Rough justice" January 29, 2008).

Originally sentenced to eight years hard labour, the aid workers were later transferred to France to under a long-standing agreement between the two countries, to serve out their terms under French law.

The charity has always denied allegations of kidnapping and said it was acting in good faith in attempting to rescue the children; all of whom it claimed were orphans, from the Dafur region of Sudan. It intended to fly them to France where it had organised host families.

But United Nations investigations soon revealed that very few of the children were in fact orphans and most of them came from Chadian villages along the border with Sudan.

The case has been a source of constant polemic for months here in France and the reaction to the pardon and release of the aid workers has been mixed. Critics accuse the members of L'Arche de Zoé of being pseudo humanitarians who were working outside of the accepted and recognised international codes of practice. Their bogus operation is viewed by many as having discredited much of the work of established non-governmental organisations and aid agencies.

In spite of those accusations, the six retain a large network of support in France - a network, which maintained a high level of pressure on the French government to intervene on their behalf and secure the pardon and release once back on French soil. Their lawyers have denounced the trial in Chad as a "parody" of justice and insist the whole story still hasn't been told. In particular they want an investigation into the role of the Chadian authorities and how an apparent blind eye was turned to the charity's activities for as long as it suited.

The reputation of neither government comes away from the whole affair entirely unblemished. The French foreign ministry apparently knew of the charity's activities in Chad but had failed to stop it from breaking international law. Meanwhile the delay in granting the pardon - one month after an attempted rebellion in Chad - is being interpreted as a face-saving move to prevent any association being made between French military assistance and support for Déby's regime.

France is one of Chad's principle allies and has 1,100 troops deployed permanently in the country.

Although some might see it as a happy end to a miserable affair, the story is far from over.

The Chadian government has not dropped its demand for €6 million in compensation for the families of the children. And the wheels of the French justice system still have to finish grinding, with the six facing charges under French law, punishable by a maximum of 10 years imprisonment and fines of €75,000 each.

A Sudanese man, Souleïmane Ibrahim Adam, who acted as an intermediary and was also tried and convicted has not been pardoned and remains in prison in Chad.