Chad 6 could face 8 years in jail

PARIS, France (CNN) -- Six charity workers convicted in Chad of the attempted kidnapping of 103 children will learn their fates in two weeks when a French court announces what sentence they should serve in France, a court spokeswoman said Tuesday.

The members of the charity, Zoe's Ark, were sentenced to eight years of hard labor in Chad last month but were handed over to France after the intervention of French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

All six appeared in front of a judge in the Paris suburbs Monday with the public prosecutor asking that the Chadian sentence -- which does not exist in French law -- be converted to eight years in prison, Ulrika Weiss, a court of appeals spokeswoman told CNN.

The court in the suburb of Creteil said it would hand down a ruling on their sentences on Jan. 28, Weiss said.

She said the Zoe's Ark workers had the right to appeal the decision. They could also ask Sarkozy for clemency, she added.

"This would only happen after seeking the advice of the Chadian president," Weiss said.

The six workers were returned to France under a Franco-Chadian judicial agreement after they were convicted in December.

They were arrested as they tried to leave the country with the children on a plane bound for Paris.

The group claims it was on a mission to rescue orphans from Sudan's war-torn Darfur region, but other charities then investigated and determined most of the children were from Chad, not Sudan, and had at least one living parent.

The workers are being detained at prisons across the Paris region, Weiss said.

She said the six were not obliged to attend the ruling later this month and could be represented in court by their legal counsel. E-mail to a friend