HIV medics freed after Libya-EU deal

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SOFIA, July 24 (Reuters): Six foreign medics convicted of infecting Libyan children with HIV were freed on Tuesday under a deal to improve Tripoli's ties with the European UnionTheir return to Bulgaria after eight years in captivity ends what Libya's critics called a human rights scandal and lifts a barrier to attempts by the long-isolated north African state to complete a process of normalizing ties with the outside world.
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 don't know what to say, I've been living for this moment," 54-year-old nurse Snezhana Dimitrova said as the medics and their families cried and hugged each other at the airport.
The Bulgarian nurses were transferred to Sofia after the EU, which Bulgaria joined in January, agreed a deal with Libya on medical aid and political ties, officials said.
"This decision will open the way for a new and enhanced relationship between the EU and Libya and reinforce our ties with the Mediterranean region and the whole of Africa," EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said.
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 a two-page deal with Libya, laying out how ties could be boosted, a European source said.