Word: chadli
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...French government officials insist that even before the group's arrest by Chadian police on October 25, they cautioned Zoé's Ark against pursuing certain of their more audacious humanitarian projects in Chad, particularly what appeared to be clandestine adoption arrangements with families back in France. Because of that, it came as little surprise to many observers earlier this month when a French investigating magistrate named several members in the group as defendants in his case for "complicity in the illegal residence of foreign minors in France," "illegally exercising the role as intermediary towards adoption" and "fraud." With...
...Tasked only with rendering the Chadian punishment compatible with French law, the Créteil court in Paris pointed out in a statement that it wasn't mandated to reexamine the case evidence or the guilty verdict handed down in Chad's capital, N'Djamena. That controversial judgment, issued on December 26, convicted the six Zoé's Ark's workers of attempted kidnapping in their efforts to secretly fly 103 children they claimed were orphans from war-torn Darfur out of eastern Chad to France for urgent care. Later investigations concluded that virtually all the children were in fact...
...Chadian government's attempts to take advantage of the humanitarian crisis created by the violence in Darfur. But despite a considerable public relations push by supporters to cast the aid workers as victims, French public opinion has failed to warm to their cause. Before and during their trial in Chad, certain members of the group righteously justified their at times extra-legal efforts to tend to the children as legitimate given the urgency of the situation. Since their December 28 return to France under Franco-Chadian judicial accords, several members of the operation have reportedly fallen out with their leaders...
...Given this run up to the tribunal's ruling on their sentence Monday, there was little reason for the Zoé's Ark members or their supporters to expect French judges to upend the rulings of the Chad court. Indeed, despite accusations by supporters and lawyers for Zoé's Ark workers that the Chadian trial had been unfair, the French tribunal ruled it had met the minimal European criteria requiring defense lawyers, debate of evidence and testimony, and recourse to appeal. Given that, the judges concluded an attempt to review the Chadian case would amount to "interference...
...Lawyers for the six convicted aid workers said they'd file for an appeal - but legal experts believe that given the narrow ambit left to the court under the judicial accords between France and Chad, they stand virtually no chance of receiving a more favorable ruling. In fact, French appeals courts are notorious for stiffening sentences in lower court rulings, meaning the Zoé's Ark crew could see they Chadian prison jolts lengthened - and then possibly compounded by eventual conviction in the case the French state brings against them...