Paris: All six French aid workers convicted in a mass kidnapping in Chad were freed in France, hours after the Chadian president formally pardoned the group, the French Justice Ministry has said.

The six, from a charity called Zoe s Ark, had tried to spirit 103 children to France in October, claiming they were orphans from Sudan's Darfur region. However, an investigation showed that the children were Chadian, and that most had at least one parent or a close adult relative.

In December, a Chadian court convicted the six on kidnapping charges and sentenced them to 8 years of forced labour. They were sent to France on December 28 where the sentence was converted into 8 years in prison.

Justice Ministry spokesman Guillaume Didier said the six were freed last evening. They had been held in prisons scattered around France. Four remain subject to a separate judicial probe in France.

Zoe's Ark leader Eric Breteau and his girlfriend, Emelie Le Louche, apparently left Fresnes prison, south of Paris, by a side door, escaping some 30 journalists and photographers at the main gate. Didier said the pair left about 1:00 am (IST).

One member of the group, Nadia Merimi, a nurse, was freed but remained at Villejuif Hospital, where she was being treated for an unspecified illness, a judicial official said. Not authorised to comment on the situation, the official asked not to be named.

"Wisdom has prevailed," Merimi's lawyer, Mario Stasi, said by telephone after the pardon was announced.

The case of the aid workers had inflamed anti-French sentiment in Chad.

Source : PTI