Aid workers leave French jail

Six French aid workers convicted of trying to smuggle 103 children out of Chad walked out of prison Monday, hours after the Chadian president pardoned the group.

The six, from the Zoe's Ark charity, were sentenced to eight years in prison in Chad, but were later transferred to France to serve their sentences under a judicial agreement.

The aid workers had tried to fly the children to France in October, claiming they were acting out of humanitarian concern for war orphans from neighboring Sudan's Darfur region. But investigations showed the children were Chadian, and that most had at least one parent or close adult relative.

The case inflamed anti-French sentiment in Chad, but President Idriss Deby raised the possibility of a pardon after French support helped him ward off a rebel attack on his capital in February. Deby said at the time that French President Nicolas Sarkozy had pledged to help resolve the issue during a visit to Chad in February.

Deby signed the decree earlier Monday.

Television cameras captured a smiling Dominique Aubry, in charge of logistics for the group, leaving a prison in Caen, in Normandy. He hugged a loved one among some 30 waiting family and friends.

Another aid worker, Alain Peligat, was freed from prison in the Aube region southeast of Paris.

"He is with me ... under a starry sky," Peligat's wife, Christine, said by telephone. "He intends to see his family again, find his mark," she said.

A doctor in the group, Philippe Van Winkelberg, was freed in Draguinon, in southern France. He thanked friends, family and a support group pressing for his release for their help.

Zoe's Ark head Eric Breteau and his girlfriend left a prison just south of Paris by a side door to escape journalists at the main gate, the Justice Ministry said.

In Paris, a lawyer for nurse Nadia Merini hailed the pardon.

"I just learned this news with pleasure and relief," Mario Stasi told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "Wisdom has prevailed."

He said Merini would try to restart her career as a nurse following her release.

The children involved spent months in an orphanage after their flight to France was stopped, and some have yet to be reunited with their families. Delays were linked to bureaucratic difficulties, Chadian government officials' determination to ensure the children were returned to the correct guardians and insecurity in eastern Chad.

One problem was that Zoe's Ark had left little paperwork identifying the children, U.N. officials involved in caring for the children said.

The travails of Zoe's Ark members are not over despite their release from prison.

Four of the six face preliminary charges of fraud and irregular adoption and could be tried here if a French investigation concludes there is cause.

Chad's president had said he wanted the children's families to receive a total of $12 million in compensation, though his pardon would not be conditional on receiving money. He also said that if France would not pay the compensation, then his government would.

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Dany Padire in N'Djamena, Chad, and Jenny Barchfield in Paris contributed to this report.