France requests return of convicted aid workers

Chad insisted today that it would have the last word over the fates of six French aid workers sentenced to eight years of forced labour as France asked that they be sent home.

France wants the charity workers, who were convicted of attempting to kidnap 103 African children they claimed were orphans from Darfur, to be repatriated under a 1976 bilateral judicial accord.

The six, from the charity group Zoe's Ark, were sentenced to eight years of forced labour by a court in the Chadian capital, N'djamena, yesterday.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Pascale Andreani said France was filing its request to Chad, a former French colony, today.

If Chad returns the convicted workers, there are hopes the French justice system will commute or reduce the workers' sentences - especially since France does not have forced labour for convicts.

But Chadian justice minister Albert Pahimi Padake said his country would have the last word.

"What is clear is that any commutation of the sentence in this domain cannot be done without the accord of the Chadian authorities," Padake told French radio RTL.

The case has embarrassed France and sparked protests in Chad.

It came as France was pushing for a European Union force to be sent to Chad to protect refugees fleeing violence in neighboring Sudan.

The deployment of the approximate 4,300-member force, drawn largely from France, already has been delayed because of lack of necessary equipment.

Chadian authorities detained the aid workers in October as they were attempting to evacuate 103 children to France.

Later investigations indicated that most of the children were Chadians and not - as the aid workers claimed - orphans from Darfur, the conflict-hit Sudanese region which borders Chad to the east.

An uprising that flared in Darfur in 2003 has led to the deaths of more than 200,000 people and forced 2.5 million to flee.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who is on holiday in Egypt, instructed his diplomatic adviser Jean-David Levitte to meet family members of the six convicted aid workers today, the presidential palace said.