Aid Workers Get 8 Years for Kidnap Attempt

Six French aid workers convicted in Chad of trying to kidnap 103 children have been sentenced to eight years in prison.

The workers were originally sentenced in Chad to serve eight years hard labor, but a longstanding agreement between the countries allowed the workers to return to France, which does not have a hard labor sentence, the BBC reported Monday.

Zoe’s Ark, the charity that employs the workers, said the organization thought the children in question were orphans from Darfur. It was later discovered that most of the children were from the bordering nation of Chad and still had living parents.

Christophe Letien, a spokesman for Zoe’s Ark, said in December that he was stunned, sickened and confused by the judgment.

The evidence of the defense was not even taken into account. It’s absolute rubbish, he said.