France, Jan. 6 -- Sherifa Riahi, the former director of the French NGO Terre d'Asile, and several members of her staff had already spent more than 20 months in jail by the time of their final hearing on Monday.

Hours after the hearing, Riahi's support committee posted a video of her leaving prison overnight, announcing her colleagues had also been freed.

Mahmoud Daoud Yaacoub, a member of Riahi's defence team, told French news agency AFP that the court had handed down a two-year suspended sentence to the defendants who were in pre-trial detention.

"Tomorrow we will learn the rest of the judgment regarding the defendants who are out on bail," he said.

The NGO employees were accused alongside 17 municipal workers from the eastern city o...