Chad President Pardons French Aid Workers
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.
PARIS — Six French aid workers convicted of trying to smuggle 103 children out of Chad walked out of prison yesterday, hours after the Chadian president pardoned the group.
The six, from the Zoe’s Ark charity, were sentenced to eight years in prison in Chad, but were later transferred to France to serve their sentences under a judicial agreement.
The aid workers had tried to fly the children to France in October, claiming they were acting out of humanitarian concern for war orphans from neighboring Sudan’s Darfur region. But investigations showed the children were Chadian, and that most had at least one parent or close adult relative.
