CHAD: Six French aid workers accused of trying to kidnap 103 children are back in court in Chad
Record ID:
1535193
CHAD: Six French aid workers accused of trying to kidnap 103 children are back in court in Chad
- Title: CHAD: Six French aid workers accused of trying to kidnap 103 children are back in court in Chad
- Date: 24th December 2007
- Summary: (W3) N'DJAMENA, CHAD (DECEMBER 24, 2007) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (French) NADIA MERIMI'S DEFENCE LAWYER, MARIO STASI, SAYING: "Nadia was very, very weak and had a serious drop in blood pressure, and it seemed necessary to sent her to hospital, to put her on a drip and make her eat normally. I don't think it's very serious, but we had to do it." VARIOUS OF SISTER OF ACCUSED, NADIA MERIMI, TALKING TO LAWYERS
- Embargoed: 8th January 2008 11:02
- Keywords:
- Location: Chad
- Country: Chad
- Topics: Legal System,Social Services / Welfare
- Reuters ID: LVAAU2MYZSUPDUMMD451M0ZPFHCV
- Aspect Ratio: 4:3
- Story Text: The trial of six French nationals accused of trying to kidnap children in Chad resumed in the Chad capital on Monday (December 24).
The six, members of French humanitarian group, Zoe's Ark, are on trial on charges of child kidnapping and fraud after being arrested while trying to fly 103 African children to France to live with European families.
Several Chadians are also on trial.
Zoe's Ark deny the charges and have said they intended to rescue orphans from the conflict zone over Chad's eastern border in Sudan's Darfur region, but investigations have found most of the children were from Chadian villages on the border, and many had parents. Some children said they had been offered sweets and biscuits to leave home, while families in France reportedly paid thousands of euros to receive a child.
Emilie Lelouch, one of the accused and a coordinator for Zoe's Ark operations in Chad responded in the negative when a journalist asked her how things were going.
"Just before the slaughter, bad," Lelouch said before going into the courtroom for the hearings.
The trial had to be interrupted when one of the six, a nurse, took ill.
French army medics lifted Nadia Merimi by stretcher out of the courtroom and drove her away in a military ambulance in the direction of a French military base in Chad's capital N'Djamena.
"Nadia was very, very weak and had a serious drop in blood pressure, and it seemed necessary to sent her to hospital to put her on a drip and make her eat normally," Merimi's defence lawyer, Mario Stasi, told Reuters TV outside the court house afterwards. "I don't think it's very serious, but we had to do it."
Stasi did not say whether Merimi had ended the hunger strike she and her five French co-accused started on December 7 to draw attention to their case, which they say has been neglected by France since President Nicolas Sarkozy helped secure the release of three French journalists and a Spanish air crew last month.
The case is an embarrassment for France, which supports Deby's rule in its former colony and is providing the backbone of a peacekeeping force due to deploy next year to protect refugee camps and aid workers in the country's violent east. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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