French Aid Workers on Trial over 'Fake' African Adoptions

A group of French aid workers went on trial Monday on charges they tried to illegally bring 103 children from Chad to France for adoption, claiming they were orphans from Darfur.

Six aid workers with the Zoe's Ark non-governmental organization went on trial in Paris, though two of the leading suspects were to be tried in absentia after refusing to show up for the proceedings.

The two, Zoe's Ark founder Eric Breteau and his partner Emilie Lelouch, are currently living in South Africa.

In a case that shocked France, the group was arrested in Chad in 2007 trying to load the children onto a plane bound for France, where they were to be adopted.

They claimed the children were orphans from the war-ravaged Darfur region in neighboring Sudan, but Chad's government accused them of kidnapping and it later emerged the children were not Sudanese and most still had living relatives.

The six were sentenced to eight years of hard labor in Chad, but later repatriated to France and had their sentences adjusted to jail time, before finally being pardoned in March 2008 by Chad's president.

They face up to 10 years in prison each in the new trial in France, on charges of acting illegally as an adoption intermediary, facilitation of illegal entry and fraud in regards to 358 families who had expected to receive the children.