Timeline of events in Zoe's Ark case

(Reuters) - Chadian President Idriss Deby on Monday granted an official pardon to six French aid workers jailed in December for abducting children.

The six members of the Zoe's Ark charity were sentenced to eight years' hard labor by a Chadian court late last year after it convicted them of trying to fly 103 African children to Europe without permission.

Here is a chronology of the case:

October 25, 2007 - Police arrest nine French citizens in eastern Chad, near the Sudanese border, as they prepare to fly 103 African children to France. Seven Spaniards, who formed the crew of the chartered plane, are also detained.

-- Among those detained are six members of the French humanitarian group Zoe's Ark, which had said it intended to bring orphans from Sudan's violent Darfur region to France for fostering with families there.

October 30 - Chadian authorities bring abduction and fraud charges against the nine French and seven Spanish nationals who they accuse of illegally trying to fly the children to Europe. A Belgian pilot is detained separately.

October 31 - Chadians chanting "no to the slave trade, no to child trafficking" protest against the French group.

November 4 - Three French journalists and four Spanish flight attendants are released after diplomatic pressure from Paris. French President Nicolas Sarkozy flies to N'Djamena to meet Chadian President Deby and collect the freed Europeans.

November 9 - Chad releases the three remaining Spanish aircrew and the Belgian pilot.

December 7 - The six French nationals start a hunger strike, refusing food but drinking water.

December 21 - Eric Breteau, Emilie Lelouch, Dominique Aubry, Alain Peligat, Philippe Van Winkelberg and Nadia Merimi stand trial in N'Djamena charged with kidnapping and fraud.

December 26 - The six are found guilty and sentenced to eight years of forced labor.

December 28 - They are flown home to France to serve their jail sentences.

March 31, 2008 - Deby grants an official pardon to the French aid workers.

(Writing by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit;)