26.7.2007

Bulgaria pardon sparks outrage

TRIPOLI: Libya yesterday summoned a top Bulgarian diplomat in Tripoli to protest the pardon granted to six medical workers extradited to Bulgaria earlier in the week, an official said.

The formal protest was delivered by Libya's deputy foreign minister in charge of European affairs, Abdelati Laabidi, to the first secretary of the Bulgarian embassy in Tripoli.

"Tripoli protests Sofia's non-compliance with the extradition treaty signed between the two countries in 1984," the memorandum said.

Bulgarian President Georgy Parvanov on Tuesday pardoned the nurses involved in an Aids-tainted blood scandal in Libya because, he said, they were innocent.

The five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian-born doctor spent eight and a half years in a Libyan jail, half of it on death row after being convicted of deliberately infecting Libyan children with the HIV virus.

The death sentences were commuted to life in prison last week following a financial settlement of $1 million (BD377,000) each to 460 HIV victims' families.

Their extradition was made possible by a treaty signed between Sofia and Tripoli in 1984, which according to a Libyan official has no provision for people convicted of crimes to be pardoned.

The families of the infected children also condemned Bulgaria's "recklessness".

An association of the families said Libya should deport all Bulgarian nationals and stop dealing with Bulgarian companies and demanded the nurses be re-arrested.

"The families expressed their condemnation and resentment at the recklessness of the Bulgarian nation when the president pardoned the nurses," the Libyan Association for the Families of HIV-Infected Children said.

More than 56 children have died and emotions are still strong in the city of Benghazi where the outbreak occurred.

Libya was under heavy pressure to release the nurses or risk hurting its efforts to emerge from decades of diplomatic isolation imposed for what the West called its support of terrorism.

The final deal brokered by the EU, involved the establishment of an international fund to care for the children and EU help to upgrade two hospitals and a medical centre in Benghazi.

Human rights advocates raised concerns yesterday over the pact and said the bloc must not reward Tripoli with full ties. There were concerns that the EU should not compromise its human rights credentials by easing pressure on Tripoli over alleged abuses such as mistreatment of detainees and suspects and the lack of a free media.

Amnesty and Human Rights Watch stressed that while the political deal was to be welcomed, it did not address the shortfalls in the Libyan judiciary system which they argue landed the nurses in jail in the first place.

"We think it is important for the international community to engage with Libya," said Reed Brody, legal counsel for Human Rights Watch.

Source: Gulf Daily