CHAD: Magistrate questions Europeans facing abduction and fraud charges for attempting to fly 103 children out of country

A magistrate in Chad on Saturday (November 3) began questioning a group of 16 Europeans facing abduction and fraud charges for attempting to fly 103 children out of the central African country. A heavy military escort brought four members of the Spanish air crew, still in their uniforms, and three French journalists to the main law courts in the dusty capital, N'Djamena, to be questioned by the examining magistrate. Four members of the Spanish air crew, still in their uniforms, and three French journalists among the European detained last week were the first to be questioned. "From Monday onwards, for the Spanish stewardesses who we've just interrogated, the cross-examination is already finished, and we are going to come back to this for comparison of facts. After we've done the comparison, the judge will then send the file to the tribunal for evaluation by the Ministry of Public Affairs, and it's only after all the information has been gathered, that the judge will give an order to send it back to court, or an order that it cannot go to trial," Chadian state lawyer Philippe Houssine Yanyabi told reporters. Once all the accused have been questioned, a tribunal will compare their statements before the magistrate decides whether there is sufficient evidence for a trial, a process likely to take several days. Nine French and seven Spanish nationals were arrested in the eastern town of Abeche near the border with Sudan's war-torn Darfur region just over a week ago as they tried to fly the children, aged between one and 10 years, to Europe. Six of the French are members of a group called Zoe's Ark which has said that it intended to place orphans from Darfur with European families for foster care and that it had the right to do so under international law. But U.N. and Chadian officials say most of the infants had come from families with at least one parent living on the violent Chad-Sudan border, contradicting the "war orphans" description of the children given by Zoe's Ark. Eric Breteau, the head of Zoe's Ark, and at least two Chadian co-accused were also brought to the courts on Saturday. If convicted in Chad, the main accused face possible forced labour terms of five to 20 years. Representatives from the journalists' organisation Reporters Without Borders arrived in the capital in support of the journalists held in prison. Robert Menard, the president of Reporters Without Borders, said the organisation was hoping the detained French reporters would be released within a few days. "There is a certain slowness maybe, but the judicial procedure, what we hope, will help them to come out, in the next few days. Maybe not today, but in the coming days," said Menard. "We are not here to force their hand, we are simply here to show our solidarity, give any explanations which may be needed, if the journalists are kept in good conditions," he added. The affair is an embarrassment for former colonial ruler France, which is an ally of Chad's President Idriss Deby and has troops and aircraft stationed in the landlocked country. It has also sparked a fierce moral debate between those who believe the children would be better off in Europe, far from Africa's suffering and conflicts, and those outraged at the way they were taken from their African families.

ITN Source | November 4, 2007

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