Seven Released After Sarkozy Flies to Chad for Talks on Fostering Case

Three French journalists and four Spanish flight attendants detained in Chad over an alleged illegal attempt by a charity to fly African children to Europe were released yesterday after the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, flew to Chad.

The freed men and women were flown to Paris on the presidential plane after Mr Sarkozy had talks in the capital, N'Djamena, with the Chadian president, Idriss Déby. The seven were among those held after a French charity was accused of plotting to take African children from their families and transport them to Europe for adoption.

It is the second Sarkozy intervention in an international legal dispute. This summer, the president's then wife, Cécilia Sarkozy, flew to Libya to escort home a group of Bulgarian medics who had been imprisoned after being accused of infecting children with HIV. The Sarkozys have since divorced.

In the Chad case, the French group Zoe's Ark had said it was on a humanitarian mission to save Darfur war orphans by evacuating them and handing them to French and Belgian "host" families who had paid about €2,000 (£1,390) each to foster them. But the group was stopped late last month while it was preparing to fly 103 children out of eastern Chad.

UN agencies said that at least 91 of the children were not orphans and came from families in eastern Chad.

Parents saying they had entrusted their children to the group told reporters this weekend they believed they would be educated at a project in Chad, and had not been informed they were to be flown out of the country.

Six members of the Zoe's Ark association remained in detention in Chad last night. They are charged with extortion and child-kidnapping and if tried in Chad could face long sentences of forced labor.

Seven members of the Spanish crew of a plane chartered by Zoe's Ark to transport the children to France were arrested with them. Yesterday, four women flight attendants were freed but a male flight attendant and two pilots were still being held. A 75-year-old Belgian pilot, who had flown the children from the border with Sudan, was also in detention, as well as four Chadians.

At the time of the arrests, President Déby had angrily suggested the Europeans wanted to "sell" the children to "pedophile nongovernmental organizations" or kill them to sell their organs.

Mr Sarkozy told a press conference in N'Djamena that he hoped the French people implicated in the affair could be judged in France.

The episode comes at a sensitive time in Chad's relations with Europe and has embarrassed France as it prepares to lead a European Union peacekeeping force to help refugees along the Chad and Central African Republic borders with Sudan's Darfur region.

Mr Sarkozy yesterday said the "very lamentable" Zoe's Ark affair would not affect the peacekeeping force deployment.

Last week, Mr Sarkozy had said the members of Zoe's Ark "were wrong to do what they did" and that Paris condemned their activities. He had been in phone contact with Mr Déby, telling journalists: "We are going to try to find agreement so that no one in this affair loses face."