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Bulgarian Medics Freed for $500mln
Five medics of Bulgaria and a Palestinian who recently took Bulgarian citizenship that had been convicted in Libya for infecting with HIV 430 children there left the country for Sofia, Reuters reported.
EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner and France’s First Lady Cecilia Sarkozy arrived to accompany the medics.
The medics had been in captivity since 1999. They survived two death sentences, which Tripoli was apparently in no hurry to execute. Even this month, the execution has been changed for the prison term.
Bulgaria, the United States and the EU have been continuously calling for medics’ release, always emphasizing that it was the framed up case targeted at covering unsatisfactory sanitary conditions in the health institutions of Libya. As a result, however, the medics were deported along with the promises that they would serve the sentence in their motherland.
The true reason of the release wasn’t the global promise to stick to the verdict of Libyan court but rather the payment of $500 million to families of HIV victims.
In addition to money, Libya was promised better relations with the EU, provision of medical assistance to children and assistance in upgrading hospital in Benghazi.
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