Paris implicated in Zoe's Ark orphan fraud?
The French charity Zoe's Ark faces trial as an organization for "fraud" related to the "snatching" of 103 Chadian children in 2007, a court source says.
The group's head Eric Breteau was brought before judges on Thursday to have the charges which also include assisting in the illegal immigration of foreign children "with a view to adoption" read out to him.
Breteau and his partner, Emilie Lelouch, have already been charged personally on similar counts following complaints from five former volunteers who claimed to have been duped by the association.
The five were sent to Chad in September 2007 and told they were on a mission to help Darfur orphans, but returned to France shortly before six members of the organization were arrested on October 25 that year.
Chad's government accused the organization of kidnapping, while its members argued they were helping orphans from the war-ravaged Darfur region in neighboring Sudan. It later emerged the children were not Sudanese but from Chad and only a handful were actually orphans.
Zoe's Ark, founded by volunteer firefighter and four-wheel-drive enthusiast Breteau, describes itself as a non-profit organization "dedicated to orphaned children."
Zoe's Ark controversial plan to airlift 1,000 children from Sudan's troubled Darfur region and place them in foster care with French families was launched in June 2008 and advertised as the only means to "save them from certain death".
It admitted signing up 500 foster families to cover evacuation costs, each paying USD 4,000 to USD 8,600 dollars.
On its website, Zoe's Ark claimed that 800,000 children are at the risk of dying by the end of the year.
In Oct. 2007, the French Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Human Rights, Rama Yade, accused the group of hiding its identity by registering in Chad under the name of Children Rescue.
She recalled that the government warned Zoe's Ark months before that it risked breaking the law and that it had no way of proving that the children involved were orphans.
French police have been investigating the charity since July 2007 on charges of illegal adoption. It has also been revealed that French military planes in Chad carried charity members on several occasions.
France has 1,000 troops and fighter jets stationed in Chad, home to some 236,000 refugees from Darfur as well as some 173,000 people displaced by a local rebellion.
There have been accusations from various political sectors about former colonial power France being an "accomplice" in the crime.
"We have got ourselves into an impossible situation and I would like to know exactly what the French authorities' role was," said former premier, Laurent Fabius, in October 2007.
In a book published in 2008, Breteau said that both the French Foreign Ministry and the French president's office had known about his mission beforehand and backed it.
The group's head Eric Breteau was brought before judges on Thursday to have the charges which also include assisting in the illegal immigration of foreign children "with a view to adoption" read out to him.
Breteau and his partner, Emilie Lelouch, have already been charged personally on similar counts following complaints from five former volunteers who claimed to have been duped by the association.
The five were sent to Chad in September 2007 and told they were on a mission to help Darfur orphans, but returned to France shortly before six members of the organization were arrested on October 25 that year.
Chad's government accused the organization of kidnapping, while its members argued they were helping orphans from the war-ravaged Darfur region in neighboring Sudan. It later emerged the children were not Sudanese but from Chad and only a handful were actually orphans.
Zoe's Ark, founded by volunteer firefighter and four-wheel-drive enthusiast Breteau, describes itself as a non-profit organization "dedicated to orphaned children."
Zoe's Ark controversial plan to airlift 1,000 children from Sudan's troubled Darfur region and place them in foster care with French families was launched in June 2008 and advertised as the only means to "save them from certain death".
It admitted signing up 500 foster families to cover evacuation costs, each paying USD 4,000 to USD 8,600 dollars.
On its website, Zoe's Ark claimed that 800,000 children are at the risk of dying by the end of the year.
In Oct. 2007, the French Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Human Rights, Rama Yade, accused the group of hiding its identity by registering in Chad under the name of Children Rescue.
She recalled that the government warned Zoe's Ark months before that it risked breaking the law and that it had no way of proving that the children involved were orphans.
French police have been investigating the charity since July 2007 on charges of illegal adoption. It has also been revealed that French military planes in Chad carried charity members on several occasions.
France has 1,000 troops and fighter jets stationed in Chad, home to some 236,000 refugees from Darfur as well as some 173,000 people displaced by a local rebellion.
There have been accusations from various political sectors about former colonial power France being an "accomplice" in the crime.
"We have got ourselves into an impossible situation and I would like to know exactly what the French authorities' role was," said former premier, Laurent Fabius, in October 2007.
In a book published in 2008, Breteau said that both the French Foreign Ministry and the French president's office had known about his mission beforehand and backed it.
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