Sarkozy's Intervention Sees Release Of Child Kidnappers

French President Personally Intervenes In Highly Suspicious Abduction Case Involving 103 Children


[By Matthew Green and Adam Jones, Financial Times | Sunday, 4 November, 2007.]
Chad on Sunday released seven Europeans detained over allegations of kidnapping involving a French charity, after the personal intervention of Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president. Mr Sarkozy’s decision to fly to Chad on Sunday underscored Paris’s determination that the case should not further damage relations between the two countries just weeks ahead of a planned deployment of French troops to the east of Chad. However, anti-French sentiment has increased sharply after revelations that many of the 103 children French charity Zoe’s Ark planned to fly to France earlier this month were not starving orphans from Darfur but healthy Chadian children living with family members.

On Sunday, three French journalists held over the affair were released with four Spanish flight attendants. However, six French members of Zoe’s Ark remain in detention with three Spanish flight crew members. They were charged with abduction and fraud last Tuesday. In a joint press conference with Idriss Deby, president of Chad, Mr Sarkozy said that he wanted the remaining French detainees to be tried in France, while at the same time criticising their self-described mercy mission as “appalling”. Mr Deby has fuelled popular anger by asking whether the charity might have been involved in a paedophile ring or wanted to sell the children’s organs. Zoe’s Ark has denied any wrongdoing. (Full story here.)