A Sudanese refugee who worked for a French aid group accused of trying to kidnap children in Chad told a court yesterday the group's members had lied to him by concealing their plan to fly the infants to Europe.

The testimony from Souleyman Ibrahim conflicted with statements made earlier by members of the Zoe's Ark group, six of whom are on trial in N'Djamena accused of trying to illegally fly 103 African children aged one to ten out of Chad.

Questioned by the judge on the second day of the trial, Ibrahim, who is charged with abetting the French, said the Zoe's Ark members had asked him to find poor children in villages on Chad's eastern border with Sudan's war-torn Darfur.

He said they told him the children would be given schooling at centres to be run by the group in the border region.

"They tricked me. They told me they were going to remain ...had I known it was to take the children elsewhere, I wouldn't have agreed," Ibrahim said, speaking in Arabic.

The court later adjourned and the trial was due to resume on Monday, officials said.

Earlier, members of Zoe's Ark told the court they had not duped local families into handing over their infants.

"We didn't promise anything to the villagers. We only explained to them the aim of our association which is to help orphans from Darfur... sick children from a war zone," Emilie Lelouch, a co-ordinator for the group, said.

If convicted, the French accused face possible forced labour sentences of five to 20 years.

But local lawyers and many Chadians expect them to be sent back to France after the verdict, either through bilateral judicial accords or through a pardon granted by Chadian President Idriss Deby.

The six, looking thin after starting a hunger strike more than one week ago, were arrested in October when Chadian authorities stopped them putting the children on board a plane to France. Ibrahim and three Chadians are on trial as accomplices.

"They (the Zoe's Ark members) asked me if I could find them children of the poor, and (said) they were going to open up a centre where these children would study Arabic and French," said Ibrahim. He said he had brought four infants from his own extended family to the group.

Zoe's Ark's leader, Eric Breteau, rejected Ibrahim's testimony. "All these statements are false," he told the court.

Inquiries by UN and Chadian officials revealed most of the children taken in charge by the Zoe's Ark group were not orphans, and were not sick. Some children said they had been offered sweets and biscuits to leave home.

A lawyer for relatives of the children said they were seeking 100 million euros in civil damages from the accused.

The Zoe's Ark case, which has caused anti-French protests in Chad, has been an embarrassment for France, which supports Deby's rule over the former French colony.

French troops have been helping Deby's government forces fight eastern rebels and will provide the bulk of a European Union peacekeeping force due to be deployed in January in east Chad to protect refugee camps and aid workers there.

The N'Djamena court judge questioned the accused about reports that families in France had paid several thousand euros each to receive a child.

"The receiving families made donations according to their salaries, their wallet," Lelouch told the court.