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Bulgarian medics accused in HIV scandal fly out of Libya

24 July 2007 10:17 (UTC +04:00)

Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor, who has Bulgarian citizenship, have arrived in Sofia aboard a French plane after eight years in a Libyan prison.
The group had been convicted of deliberately infecting children with HIV in Libya, a claim they have always denied.
Bulgarian President President Georgy Parvanov pardoned the group moments after they flew back to Sofia.
The plane, on which France’s first lady Cecilia Sarkozy and EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner were also travelling, departed early today from Tripoli.
Sarkozy and Ferrero-Waldner had been negotiating the extradition of the six after their death sentences were commuted to life.
The six, who were sentenced to death in December after Libya accused them of deliberately infecting more than 400 children, had all insisted they were innocent and claimed their confessions were extracted under torture.
Several HIV experts had investigated the case and concluded that the outbreak at the Benghazi hospital was caused by bad hygiene. Fifty-six of the children have since died, provoking widespread anger in Libya.
The families of the infected children have received compensation payments totalling Â£230 million from the Libyan state.
After coming down the steps of the plane, the six were welcomed on the tarmac by elated family members who tearfully hugged them.
They were handed bouquets of flowers.
Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov thanked Mr Sarkozy in a phone conversation for the â€œfor the active role and the personal engagementâ€ of Mrs Sarkozy in resolving the case. /APA/