16 held over 'adoptions'

Chad - Sixteen Europeans being held in Chad after a charity tried to fly more than 100 children from the central African nation to France may face charges, a Chadian minister said on Saturday.

It would be up to a judge to "determine the responsibility of each (crew member)," Justice Minister Albert Pahimi Padacke told reporters in Chad's main eastern city of Abeche.

In a separate telephone interview with AFP, Padacke said a meeting was taking place to decide whether to formally charge them.

Nine French nationals, including some members of the charity Arche de Zoe (Zoe's Ark) and three journalists, were spending their second day in custody on Saturday.

Justice Minister Albert Pahimi Padacke also confirmed that seven Spanish crew members of the plane that was to carry the children had been detained.

Journalists were briefly allowed to visit Abeche's central police station on Saturday, where the French and the Spanish were being held in a single room.

But reporters were not allowed to speak to the detainees, take pictures or film them.

A case of 'kidnap, pure and simple'

The 16 were unshackled and did not appear to bear traces of any violence that may have been inflicted during their detention, as one member of France's Arche de Zoe (Zoe's Ark) charity had claimed.

Their detention theoretically expires on Saturday evening, but can be extended another 48 hours if needed for the enquiry, Padacke said.

The nine French nationals had organised an operation they said aimed to take 103 child orphans from the civil war in Sudan's western province of Darfur to France.

The group was arrested on Thursday in the eastern town of Abeche just before the plane was due to leave.

Chad's President Idriss Deby Itno has demanded "severe punishment" for the charity workers and called it a case of "kidnap, pure and simple".

Deby claimed the charity had "tricked the vigilance of Chad's authorities".

He claimed they were "acting against the will of parents" and rhetorically asked journalists if the aim was to "sell them or kill them and remove their organs?"

Chadian television late on Friday showed the French handcuffed and seated on the floor in Abeche, as well as boys and girls aged between one and eight years. Some of the children were weeping.

'A plot'

The footage also included shots of the Spanish crew.

Arche de Zoe claimed it was flying out the children to "save them from death" in the nearby Darfur civil war.

But a Unicef representative in Chad's capital N'Djamena said the "massive majority" of the children were from Chad and there was "nothing to say" they were orphans.

A Belgian pilot who brought the children as far as Abeche on several flights over the past few weeks told a French radio station on Saturday that the Chadians were aware of the operation.

The matter has sparked controversy in France, where the children were reportedly to be adopted or fostered by families who had paid €2 800-6 000 to the organisation.

The French government has denounced the operation as "illegal" and "irresponsible".

French police have also been investigating the charity's activities since July.

But Arche de Zoe claims French authorities never clearly denounced their planned operation and even transported charity members on its military planes.

"If there was an official ban coming from the Quai d'Orsay (the French Foreign Ministry), we would have received an official document," the charity's lawyer Gilbert Collard told AFP in an interview.

Collard also blamed what he called a "plot" by competing humanitarian organisations in Chad.
27/10/2007 21:15 - (SA)
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Do you think it's likely that a French charity is stealing children from a country in Africa?

How can this particular situation be investigated? Should French authorities be invited to be involved?

What do you think about international adoptions?
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