Chad's President Idriss Deby signed a pardon today for six French aid workers jailed in December for abducting 103 African children, Chad state radio said.
The six members of the Zoe's Ark charity were sentenced to eight years' hard labour by a Chadian court late last year after it convicted them of trying to fly 103 African children to Europe without permission.
The charity workers, who had denied the charges, were flown back to France in late December and were serving their prison sentences there under a cooperation agreement.
"The presidential pardon is accorded to Eric Breteau, Emilie Lelouch, Dominique Aubry, Alain Peligat, Philippe Van Winkelberg and Nadia Merimi," said a presidential decree, read on state radio in the former French colony.
France's diplomatic and military support helped Deby weather a rebel assault on the capital N'Djamena in early February, and the Chadian leader has since made it clear he was ready to pardon the French aid workers. In their court testimony in Chad, the six had said they believed they were trying to rescue war orphans from the conflict-torn Darfur region of Chad's eastern neighbour Sudan.
But UN and Chadians officials said most of the children were not orphans and came from Chadian border villages, where their parents had been persuaded to give up their offspring in exchange for promises of education. It was not immediately clear how long it would be before the six aid workers were released from French detention.
A spokesman in Paris said the justice ministry was awaiting official confirmation of the Chadian decision but Gilbert Collard, a lawyer for Zoe's Ark member Emilie Lelouch, said he hoped they could be liberated very soon. "It depends on how long the French administration takes to authenticate, approve and implement the documents. It can be very rapid," he told BFM television.
"From the moment the pardon is signed, they're free, they're pardoned. So, the French administration will put all its energy in ensuring that not a minute, not an hour, a day of detention longer now the pardon has been signed." Chad's Higher Judicial Council, which advises Deby on legal matters, on Friday gave him the formal go-ahead to issue the official pardon.