Six French members of the Zoe’s Ark charity, three Chadians and a Sudanese national will be tried by a criminal court in Chad for having tried to fly 103 African children to France, a lawyer told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Monday.
A Chadian investigating judge dismissed the case against 12 other suspects: three French journalists, the seven Spanish crew members of a plane that was to fly the children to France, a Belgian pilot and a local official at Tine, a town bordering Sudan.
The French were among a total of 17 Europeans arrested in the eastern Chadian city of Abeche after trying to fly 103 African children to France last month.
They face charges of kidnapping minors, fraud and the forgery of documents, according to the judge’s ruling, which was made available to the defendants’ lawyers.
The Chadians and the Sudanese refugee were being held for complicity in kidnappings and fraud.
The defendants risk terms of between five and 20 years of hard labour if found guilty.
It was not clear until Monday whether the 10 accused would stand trial before a criminal court or one that tried only misdemeanours.
Lawyers for the charity workers had previously requested that their case be downgraded, so they could face trial in a court where the charges against them carried lighter sentences.
The six French workers of the Zoe’s Ark charity were generally in good shape on Sunday, a day after they began a hunger strike to protest their innocence, their lawyer, Abdou Lamian, said earlier.
Lamian said a few were ”a little weakened” by their fast.
All six French defendants say they are innocent.
Zoe’s Ark has argued the children were orphans from Darfur, the Sudanese region bordering Chad that is currently in the throes of a bloody conflict.
But international humanitarian organisations claim almost all the children are from Chadian villages in the border area, and have at least one parent or adult guardian. — AFP
