Paris: Two French pilots given 20-year jail sentences in the Dominican Republic for cocaine-trafficking slipped out of the country and went home "to clear their names", one of them said Tuesday, but the Caribbean nation said it will seek their re-arrest.
Pascal Fauret, 55, and co-pilot Bruno Odos, 56, were among four Frenchmen sentenced in Santo Domingo in August in a case dubbed "Air Cocaine" in France.
But on Tuesday they were back with their families in France after travelling by boat from the Dominican Republic to the Franco-Dutch island of Saint Martin, before flying to Martinique and then on to France.
Fauret told a press conference in Paris that he felt the men had no choice but to leave the Dominican Republic, where they were not being held in detention pending a judicial appeal.
"The justice system did not open an investigation, it did not listen to us and we were sentenced to 20 years in jail just because we're French and not good Christians," he said.
"I'm sorry, but my first instinct was to return to my country where I could speak before a functional justice system and try to go back to a normal life."
Their lawyer Jean Reinhart insisted the men had not "fled" the Dominican Republic.
"They are in France not to flee justice but to seek justice," he told AFP.
"They are not escapees, because they were not in prison," he added, explaining that although they were not in jail they had been barred from leaving the Dominican Republic pending the appeal.
Exactly how the pilots managed to leave remains shrouded in mystery.
Eric Dupond-Moretti, a high-profile lawyer who is representing the pilots, said he could not give details of their journey because "it was not done alone, there were other people involved".
But he said the men had left of their own accord, telling the press conference: "It's no use imagining that a team of spooks was paid by the French state to facilitate this escape. That's not it at all."
The foreign ministry said the men had received no help from the French government.
AFP
