Six French aid workers sentenced to hard labour in Chad for trying to kidnap 103 children will be returned to France today under an accord between the two states, a Chad justice ministry official said.
A French plane specially chartered by the government in Paris had arrived in the landlocked African country to fly the six home, escorted by French judicial experts.
France had asked Chad to send home the four men and two women from French humanitarian group Zoe's Ark so they could serve their jail terms in France under the terms of the 1976 bilateral judicial accord.
"The (Chadian justice) minister is in the process of preparing their departure now," an aide to Justice Minister Albert Pahimi Padacke said.
The six had been sentenced by a Chadian court on Wednesday to eight years' hard labour each after they were found guilty of abduction. They were arrested in October as they tried to fly the children, aged one to 10, to Europe for fostering with families there.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is on holiday in Egypt and had personally lobbied for the six to be returned to France, spoke by phone late on Thursday with Chadian President Idriss Deby, French officials said.
French Justice Minister Rachida Dati on Thursday formally requested for the six to be transferred to serve their terms in France under the accord between Paris and its former colony.