Six foreign medics convicted of infecting hundreds of Libyan
children with HIV were freed yesterday after a "full partnership"
deal between Tripoli and the European Union ended their eight-year
ordeal.
Their return to Bulgaria ends what Libya's critics called a
human rights scandal and could allow the long-isolated North
African state to complete a process of normalizing ties with the
West.
Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov pardoned the five nurses and
a Palestinian doctor who recently took Bulgarian citizenship after
their arrival in Sofia on a French jet. The medics said they were
innocent and had been tortured to confess.
"I know I am free, I know I am on Bulgarian soil, but I still
cannot believe it," 48-year-old nurse Christiana Valcheva said as
the medics and their families wept and hugged each other at the
airport.
The Bulgarian nurses were flown to Sofia after the EU, which
Bulgaria joined in January, agreed a last-minute breakthrough deal
with Libya on medical aid and political ties.
"We hope to go on further normalizing our relations with Libya.
Our relations with Libya were in a large extent blocked by the
non-settlement of this medics issue," EU Commission President Jose
Manuel Barroso said.
Libyan Foreign Minister Mohammed Abdel-Rahman Shalgam said the
deal had opened the way to "full cooperation and partnership
between Libya and the European Union".
Bulgaria and its allies in Brussels and Washington had suggested
that not freeing the nurses would hurt Libya's efforts to emerge
from decades of diplomatic isolation imposed for what the West
called its support of terrorism.
Shalgam said the deal involved EU support and assistance for the
more than 400 infected children in European hospitals for the rest
of their lives.
The accord provides for the rehabilitation of two hospitals and
a medical center in Benghazi, the eastern Libyan city where the HIV
outbreak occurred. The EU also offered assistance to Libya in
education, archaeology and stemming illegal migration.
EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner
traveled to Tripoli with Cecilia Sarkozy, the wife of the French
president, to help free the medics and flew with them to Sofia. She
signed the deal with Libya, a European source said.
Nineteen Bulgarian medical workers were initially detained in
1999 and six stood trial. One Bulgarian doctor was released in May
2004 when the five nurses and the Palestinian doctor were sentenced
to death.
Foreign HIV experts testified that the infections started before
the six found guilty arrived at the hospital, and were more likely
to be the result of poor hygiene.
The victims' families have said the case was part of a Western
attempt to undermine Muslims in Libya. Fifty-six of the children
have died.
Human rights group Amnesty International welcomed the medics'
release. It said Libya should now proceed with much-needed reforms
to its criminal justice system to ensure such a case never happened
there again.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy had pledged to make the medics'
release a foreign policy priority and said he would visit Libya on
Wednesday to help Tripoli's reintegration with the West.
The medics, who looked in good health, and their families will
stay for the next few days in the presidential residency on the
outskirts of Sofia where they will undergo medical checks.
The Palestinian doctor, Ashraf Alhajouj, has lived most of his
life in Libya. He will likely travel to the Netherlands on Friday
to visit his family there, his lawyer told Dutch news agency
ANP.
(China Daily via agencies July 25, 2007)
