PARIS, Dec 26 (Reuters) - France will ask for the
repatriation of six French aid workers found guilty by a court
in Chad of trying to kidnap 103 children, the Foreign Ministry
said on Wednesday.
 

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Pascale Andreani declined to
comment on the verdict itself, which condemned the six to eight
years of hard labour.
 

But she said that under the conditions of a judicial accord
between the two countries, Paris would ask for the six members
of the aid group Zoe's Ark to be brought back to France.
 

"France, after obtaining the agreement of the members of
Zoe's Ark and examining the implementation of the judicial
cooperation accord between France and Chad, in particular
article 29, will ask the Chadian authorities for the transfer of
the prisoners to France," she said in a statement.

Six French aid workers were sentenced to eight years of hard labour each after a court in Chad found them guilty on Wednesday of trying to kidnap 103
children from the African country.
 

France, while calling the verdict a "sovereign decision",
said it would ask Chad to implement a 1976 bilateral judicial
accord which would allow the convicted six to be transferred
home to serve jail sentences in their own country.
 

The court in the capital N'Djamena handed down the sentence
on the fourth day of the trial of the six members of the French
humanitarian group Zoe's Ark. They were arrested in October for
trying to fly the 103 children, aged one to 10, to Europe.
 

The court also ordered them to pay compensatory damages of
40 million CFA francs ($88,000) for each of the 103 children
involved, totalling 4.12 billion CFA francs ($9 million) in all.
 

After the sentence was read by the court president, the
French, four men and two women, were escorted from the courtroom
among a jostling mob of journalists, their faces serious.
 

Defence lawyers and relatives of the six reacted with dismay
to the sentence and called on France's government to work for a
solution with Chad that would enable them to be returned home.
 

Chad's government had faced heavy popular pressure to punish
the Zoe's Ark members.
 

But there is widespread expectation of a diplomatic deal
between Paris and N'Djamena to send them quickly back to France,
either through the judicial accord or a pardon granted by
Chadian President Idriss Deby. None of these options were
mentioned by the court in delivering the sentence.
 

French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Pascale Andreani said in
Paris: "France, after obtaining the agreement of the members of
Zoe's Ark and examining the implementation of the judicial
cooperation accord between France and Chad, in particular
article 29, will ask the Chadian authorities for the transfer of
the prisoners to France."
 

There was no immediate comment from Chadian officials.
 

One of the six's defence lawyers, Gilbert Collard,
criticised the sentence, saying there was no justice in Chad. "I
hope the French government will move to quickly bring home our
compatriots, who have been caught in a trap," he told reporters.