All six French aid workers convicted of a mass kidnapping in Chad have been freed in France, hours after the Chadian president formally pardoned the group, the French Justice Ministry said.

One of six French aid workers charged in Chad with kidnapping children told a court today that local colleagues had misled them.

THE head of a French charity on trial with five colleagues in Chad yesterday denied kidnapping 103 children, saying he believed in good faith they were saving orphans from Darfur.

Most of the 103 African “orphans” a French charity tried to fly to Europe from Chad appear to have at least one living parent, it emerged today.