BELGIUM: Belgian pilot arrives back home after Chad detention

A 74-year-old Belgian pilot, who had been detained in Chad over an attempt to fly 103 African children to Europe, arrived home by military jet. Jacques Wilmart, freed by Chadian authorities on Friday (November 9), arrived back to Belgium on Saturday night (November 10). Wilmart was flown by the Belgian military to Melsbroek military base on the outskirts of Brussels and was taken away by ambulance after having suffered heart problems earlier this week. He came out of the plane draped in a white blanket and was welcomed by a crowd of relatives and journalists. Wilmart had remained at the French military base in Chad convalescing after suffering heart problems on Thursday (November 8 The Belgian was arrested last month in eastern Chad and charged as an accomplice of six French members of a humanitarian activist group calling itself Zoe's Ark, which Chadian authorities accuse of trying to take the children out of the country illegally. On his arrival, he refused to answer any question but gave a short statement and hinted the affair had deep political implications. ''Please accept my apologies that I am talking to you like that but as I am sure you understand I am tired. Let me tell also you straight away that I will not answer any questions today about the polemic in this affair with political implications that go far beyond my understanding,'' Wilmart speaking from inside the ambulance. Wilmart flew the children from the Sudanese border area to the eastern Chadian town of Abeche, from where a Spanish charter flight was due to carry them to France. The six French citizens still in custody have been charged with fraud and abduction. The final three members of the Spanish air crew arrived back in Madrid on Friday after Chadian authorities decided they could not be linked to child abduction or trafficking. Four Spanish stewardesses had already been freed. U.N. officials say almost all of the infants aged from one to 10 came from villages on the Chad-Sudan border and had at least one living parent. The case has stirred anger in Chad, and other parts of Africa, against what many see as overbearing Western charity organisations. Scores of people demonstrated in N'Djamena on Saturday against Zoe's Ark and France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, who angered Chadian authorities by promising to bring home the remaining French citizens.

ITN Source | November 11, 2007

Tags:. .promising. .western. .earlier. .villages. .straight