Libya reveals cash deal on medics

TRIPLOI, Libya (Reuters) -- The Czech Republic, Qatar and Bulgaria contributed to an international fund to support hundreds of children who contracted HIV at a Libyan hospital in the 1990s, Libya said on Saturday.

"I thank Qatar for its role in the nurses' case. European countries including Bulgaria and the Czech Republic contributed to the fund for the infected children," Libyan Prime Minister al-Baghdadi Ali Al-Mahmoudi told reporters in Tripoli.

"France pledged to equip Benghazi hospital and provide trained personnel for five years. It also agreed to train some 50 Libyan doctors."

The Benghazi International Fund has already given $1 million to the family of each infected child under a deal to secure a pardon for six foreign medics who were jailed in Libya for eight years on charges of deliberately contaminating the children.

The money came from a $460 million loan due to be repaid as and when donors make resources available, a humanitarian body said on Friday.

In a subsequent deal, the European Union promised closer ties with Libya in exchange for custody of the five Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian doctor, who were flown to Bulgaria this week and immediately pardoned and freed by the president.

The fund will also finance medical treatment for the children and improvements to the Libyan healthcare system. It has pledges of financial and in-kind contributions worth about $477 million, which it says came from 31 different sources, including Libya.

Bulgaria has contributed to the fund through a Bulgarian non-governmental organisation in which private Bulgarian and foreign companies are involved, Deputy Foreign Minister Feim Chaushev told Reuters.

He said the sums given so far were symbolic compared with what was paid to the families.

"One of the options for Bulgaria's contribution to the fund is forgiving the Libyan debt," Chaushev said. "We are to decide on that option. We are discussing other options as well, such as technical assistance."

Jailed since 1999, the six medics were twice sentenced to death after trials that drew sharp international criticism. They said they were innocent and that earlier confessions of guilt were extracted under torture.

Families of the HIV victims in Libya condemned Bulgaria's "recklessness" in pardoning and freeing the medics, and demanded they be re-arrested by Interpol.

Libya said the pardon violated earlier bilateral accords, but Bulgarian officials insisted it was legal.

"The most important thing is to restore our relations with Libya because in the last eight years they have stalled in the medics' case," Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin told Darik radio.

"With solving this case and the return of our medics to Bulgaria, we have opened a new door... "

The medics' release removed an obstacle to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's efforts to end three decades of diplomatic isolation. E-mail to a friend

Copyright 2007 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

All About Bulgaria • Libya