Chad yesterday released three members of a Spanish air crew and a 74-year-old Belgian pilot who had been detained over an attempt by a humanitarian activist group to fly 103 African children to Europe.
The Spaniards, two pilots and an air steward, were freed from the main prison in Chad's capital N'Djamena and flew back to Madrid with Spanish Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Bernardino Leon who had come out especially to collect them.
After disembarking from a Spanish air force plane on a chilly Madrid autumn night, a weary-looking Agustin Rey, pilot for Catalan air charter company Girjet, thanked the government and the public for their support. "We stayed a crew at all times, and I'm really proud of each and every one of them," said Rey, still wearing his dark pilot's uniform, as fellow crew members Daniel Gonzalez and Sergio Munoz stood by after a welcome from Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega.
Relatives hugged the men on the tarmac.
"The first moments were very difficult, we were uncertain of what was happening," said Rey, referring to their arrest on October 25th in eastern Chad, when they were charged as accomplices of six French members of the humanitarian activist group calling itself Zoe's Ark.
Release papers have also been issued for the Belgian pilot, but he had suffered heart problems late on Thursday and was recovering at the French military base in Chad.
He would be evacuated separately, his Chadian lawyer, Jean-Bernard Padare, told reporters.
The French are still held in Chad and face trial after being charged with fraud and abduction for trying to fly 103 African children they said were Darfur orphans to families in Europe.
Speaking to reporters just before leaving with the three freed air crew members, Mr Leon said Chadian authorities had come to the conclusion that the Spaniards could not be linked to any suspicion of child abduction or trafficking.
"We have to thank the Chadian authorities," he said, after meeting Chadian Prime Minister Nouradine Delwa Kassire Coumakoye. Chad says the Zoe's Ark group, which had contracted the Spanish air crew, did not have permission to take the children out of the country.
UN officials say almost all of the infants aged 1-10 came from villages on the Chad-Sudan border and had at least one living parent. Spanish media reported the decision to release the aircrew followed testimony given by the detained leader of the Zoe's Ark group, Eric Breteau, who said they had simply been contracted to carry out a flight mission but were not involved in the group's activities in Chad.
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero spoke by telephone with Chadian President Idriss Deby for 20 minutes earlier yesterday, Spanish state radio reported. Belgium's Foreign Ministry said it had received official confirmation Chad was also freeing Wilmart and it was trying to organise his repatriation.
The Spanish crew is the second group of Europeans to be freed from among 17 detained in late October in eastern Chad. Four Spanish female flight attendants and three French journalists were released by Chad on Sunday and flown home with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who had travelled to Chad to discuss the case with Deby.