Medics get pardon, jubilant welcome in Bulgaria after 8 years in Libyan prison

SOFIA, Bulgaria -- Tears and jubilation greeted six medics freed by Libya on Tuesday after nearly a decade languishing in jail over widely rejected accusations they deliberately infected children with HIV, ending a nightmare that drove at least one to attempt suicide.

Behind the dramatic release of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were secretive negotiations involving the French president's glamorous wife.

But questions remain about what concessions were made to Moammar Gadhafi's regime -- with reports emerging from Tripoli that a charity created to compensate the infected children and their families saw its funds jump 100-fold to $400 million through European contributions.

Libya had accused the six of deliberately infecting more than 400 Libyan children with the virus that causes AIDS; 50 of the children died. The medics, jailed since 1999 with most of those years passed under a death sentence, deny knowingly infecting the children and say their confessions were extracted under torture.

The six were whisked from Tripoli to the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, aboard France's presidential jet, their release secured during a three-day trip to Libya by French first lady Cecilia Sarkozy and the European Union's commissioner for foreign affairs, Benita Ferrero-Waldner.

The medics were welcomed on the tarmac by relatives who hugged them, one lifting the Palestinian doctor, Ashraf al-Hazouz, off the ground. Bulgaria granted him citizenship last month. The six were immediately pardoned by Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov.

"I waited so long for this moment," said nurse Snezhana Dimitrova before falling in the arms of her loved ones.

Madame Sarkozy, after a broad wave to cameras as she stepped off the plane, said she had "not slept for 45 hours."

Her husband, President Nicolas Sarkozy, said neither his country nor the EU paid money for the release. But within hours, the European Union -- which Bulgaria joined in January -- was offering Libya improved economic and political ties potentially worth billions of dollars.

Details of the deal to release the medics were still sketchy, and it was unclear just how significant a role was played by France.

Sarkozy, who came to power in May, mentioned the medics in his election campaign. He later said their plight moved him to push for their release.

"The nurses, in my heart, were French," he said. "They were French because they were unjustly accused and because they suffered and because we had to get them out of there."

But some said the French role was being overblown.

"We mustn't exaggerate the role France played in ending the deadlock," said Barah Mikail, a Middle East expert at the French Institute of International and Strategic Relations. "If we put things into a global perspective, we were already in a situation that was favorable to the liberation of the hostages."

Qatar also mediated in the negotiations, Sarkozy said, but few details emerged of its role.

In Tripoli, Libyan officials said European countries have promised millions of dollars to a fund created to compensate families of infected children.

"There was only $4 million in the fund, but after negotiations with Ferrero-Waldner, the amount ... became $400 million, extended by the EU," said Saleh Abdul-Salam, director of the Gadhafi International Foundation for Charity Associations, which manages the fund headed by Gadhafi's son, Seif al Islam.

Libyan Foreign Minister Abdul-Rahman Shalqam said Libya and the EU agreed to develop a "full partnership," with the Europeans promising aid to develop Libyan hospitals and other infrastructure. He did not reveal how much aid was involved, but said the EU promised "lifelong treatment" for the infected children, as well as improvements to Benghazi hospital, where they were infected.

Ferrero-Waldner said Tripoli was offered a package of better economic and political ties, including the opening of markets for Libyan imports and help restoring archaeological sites and curbing the flow of illegal migrants who use Libya as a transit country to Europe.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the EU hoped to "normalize our relations with Libya. Our relations with Libya were to a large extent blocked by the non-settlement of this medics' issue."

Libya's decision to allow the six to return to Bulgaria came after months of pressure from the United States and the EU making clear to Gadhafi that resolving the issue was key to normalizing relations.

President Bush's counterterrorism adviser, Frances Fragos Townsend, met with Gadhafi on July 10 and conveyed the "importance of resolving outstanding issues," including that of the medics, Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said at the time.

The following day, Bush nominated an ambassador to Tripoli, where the U.S. reopened its embassy in May 2006.

While politicians and diplomats negotiated behind the scenes, the medics said they endured torture and rape -- abuses under which they made admissions. Their death sentence was only commuted to life in prison a week ago.

One of the nurses, 41-year-old Nasya Nenova, said she tried to commit suicide out of fear of further torture.

Another, Kristiana Valcheva, has said she "was tortured with electric shocks, beaten and submitted to every kind of torture known since the Middle Ages."

The five nurses -- all mothers -- went to Libya nearly a decade ago, attracted by promises of higher-paying jobs. They were sent through a Bulgarian recruitment agency to al-Fath Children's Hospital in Benghazi. The nurses were arrested the year after their arrival.

Human Rights Watch, which interviewed the medical workers in jail in May 2005, said that four recounted how interrogators subjected them to electric shocks and beatings.

"I confessed during torture with electricity. They put small wires on my toes and on my thumbs. Sometimes they put one on my thumb and another on either my tongue, neck or ear," Human Rights Watch quoted nurse Valentina Siropulo as saying.

The medics were taken to a government residence where they will spend the next few days with their relatives, away from intense media coverage.

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Associated Press writers Khaled El-Deeb in Tripoli, Libya; Antonio Oliveira in Paris and Constant Brand in Brussels, Belgium, contributed to this report.