国际英语新闻：French, Spanish held for 'abducting' 103 children

Chad's authorities brought abduction and fraud charges Tuesday against nine French and seven Spanish nationals they accused of illegally trying to fly 103 African children to Europe.

A Chadian prosecutor said the French, members of a group called Zoe's Ark which said it wanted to place orphans from Sudan's war-torn Darfur with European families, faced five to 20 years hard labor if convicted in the landlocked African state.

The French group has denied wrongdoing. But UN and French officials said it appeared many of the children, aged three to 10 years old, were from Chad and many were not orphans.

Seven Spanish crew members of the plane chartered for the operation were charged as accessories, along with two Chadians.

The 16 Europeans were arrested on Thursday as they tried to fly the children out of Abeche in eastern Chad. A Belgian pilot was detained separately but was not cited in yesterday's charges.

Despite the embarrassment caused by the case, France said it did not expect its longstanding ties with its former colony to be hurt. Paris has troops stationed in Chad and will provide roughly half of a European Union peacekeeping force to be deployed shortly in Chad's violent eastern region.

Spain's government disagreed with the charges against the Spanish aircrew, saying there was no conclusive evidence.

Chadian President Idriss Deby has demanded stiff penalties. He has suggested the children could have ended up being sold to a paedophile ring or used to supply human organs.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he had spoken to Deby by telephone and assured him that his government condemned the activities of the Zoe's Ark group. "We'll try to reach agreement so that no one loses face in this affair," he told reporters on a visit to Corsica.

French officials did not see the scandal affecting the EU deployment in Chad to protect 400,000 Sudanese and Chadian refugees who have fled violence spilling over from Darfur.

A bilateral judicial convention exists which could allow Chad to ask France to handle the case, but French Justice Minister Rachida Dati said that for the moment it remained in the hands of the "sovereign" Chadian justice system.

Agencies