Chad's chief prosecutor asked a court on Wednesday to sentence a group of French aid workers to between 7 and 11 years forced labour for trying to kidnap 103 children from the African country.
The prosecutor made the request after four days of hearings at the trial in N'Djamena and the judges retired to consider their verdict and sentence, which they were expected to deliver later on Wednesday.
The six members of the French humanitarian group Zoe's Ark were tried on abduction and fraud charges after being arrested in October for trying to fly the children, aged 1 to 10, to Europe.
Since the trial opened, the six have persistently rejected the charges against them. They testified that they believed the children were orphans from Sudan's war-torn Darfur region whom they intended to give to European families for fostering. International law justified this humanitarian operation, they argued.
"I maintain what I've said since the start of this affair ... our intention was to fetch orphans from Darfur," Zoe's Ark's leader, Eric Breteau, told the court when asked if he had any final words to say.
Chad's government faces heavy popular pressure to punish the Zoe's Ark members. But there is widespread expectation that a diplomatic deal between Paris and N'Djamena could soon return the six accused to France, either through bilateral judicial accords or a pardon granted by Chadian President Idriss Deby.
Defence lawyers had accused the Chadian court of rushing through the trial under political pressure from Paris. France is an ally of Deby and has a military contingent stationed in the landlocked former French colony. French troops have been supporting Deby's forces against eastern rebels and will provide the bulk of a European Union peacekeeping force due to be deployed in east Chad in January.
CONFLICTING ARGUMENTS:
Chad's government has said the six, on trial along with three Chadians and one Sudanese accused as accomplices, did not have permission to take the children out of the country. Prosecutors allege the group, led by Breteau and Emilie Lelouch, duped parents in eastern Chad into handing over their children with promises of schooling.
State lawyer Philippe Houssine said the sentences requested by the prosecution were justified because Breteau and Lelouch had shown no remorse. "On the contrary, he (Breteau) displays an arrogant, insolent attitude, which means this is a person who is ready to do it again if asked," he told reporters.
Defence lawyer Gilbert Collard said the accused were very depressed. "They feel the abyss just a few centimetres away, they are lost, completely lost," he said. The French have blamed their local intermediaries for misleading them over the identity of the children, whom Chadian and United Nations officials said were mostly not orphans and came from villages in Chad on its eastern border with Darfur.
The prosecutor requested civil damages to be awarded for each of the 103 children in the case - 40 million CFA francs ($88,000) each, totalling 4.12 billion CFA francs ($9 million) in all.