Aid worker falls ill in Chad trial

N'DJAMENA, Chad (AP) -- A French nurse was carried out of a Chadian courtroom on Monday after falling ill during a trial in which she and five other charity workers are accused of trying to kidnap 103 African children.

Nadia Merimi, who is on a hunger strike along with her co-defendants, was taken out of the court while relatives of the children testified in the third day of the trial. Her condition was not immediately known.

The defendants, who work for an aid group called Zoe's Ark, were charged with fraud and kidnapping after authorities stopped a convoy with 103 children that the charity was planning to fly from Africa to France in October.

They face 20 years in prison with hard labor if convicted.

Zoe's Ark officials maintain they were driven by compassion to help orphans in Darfur, which borders Chad.

An uprising that flared in Darfur in 2003 has led to the deaths of more than 200,000 people and forced 2.5 million to flee their homes.

But subsequent investigations revealed most of the 103 children that Zoe's Ark was planning to fly out were Chadians who had at least one parent or close adult relative with whom they lived.
Watch a report on how the events unfolded »

Nassour Gardia, a relative who testified on Monday, said he believed the children were going to be educated in Chad.

"They tricked us by telling us our children would be taught here," Gardia said. "And then they herded them like cattle to sell in France."

Celine Lorenzon, one of the defense lawyers, told the French radio station France-Info she expected to sum up her case on Wednesday, and that the verdict was likely that same day.

The case has embarrassed France and sparked protests in the central African country, a former French colony.

France's role in the region has already come under scrutiny in recent months as the European Union plans to send a military mission composed mostly of French troops to Chad to protect refugees fleeing violence in neighboring Sudan.

Three Chadians and one Sudanese refugee have also been charged with conspiracy. Some Chadians have expressed anger that the African prisoners may be judged by a harsher standard since they have no European government to intervene on their behalf.

Eleven other foreigners -- three French journalists who had been reporting on the planned evacuation and seven Spanish flight crew members and a Belgian pilot hired to fly out the children -- have been released and flown home. Watch the freed Europeans leave Chad » E-mail to a friend

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