Libya Pardons Medics' Death Sentences

The death sentence of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor accused of infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV has been commuted to life in prison, Libya's foreign minister said Tuesday.

Foreign Minister Abdel-Rahman Shalqam said Libya's Supreme Judiciary Council had commuted the death sentences to life in prison.

"Issuing this decision automatically closes the legal case against them," Shalqam told The Associated Press in an interview.

He said Tripoli was willing to consider the medics' deportation to Bulgaria, but would not give a timeframe.

"There is a legal cooperation agreement between Libya and Bulgaria, and we don't mind that the Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor benefit from it," he told AP.

The minister said negotiations for a possible deportation would take place within "the legal framework and political context" between the two countries.

"In return (for a transfer), improving the conditions of the infected children and their families should be taken into account," he told AP.

Libya's Supreme Court had upheld the six medics' death sentence last week, but the Judiciary Council meeting late Tuesday is a government body that can overrule the court.

"Thank God the death sentences were dropped. This is at least some relief that they are not going to be executed," said Zdravko Georgiev, the husband of Kristiana Valcheva, one of the jailed nurses.

"But I can not make any forecast how long the upcoming procedures will last," the husband said in radio interview from Tripoli.

One of the medics' lawyers, Harry Haralampiev, said he was not satisfied with the Judiciary Council's decision. "I expected the council to pardon the medics," he said on the radio.

Relatives of the Libyan HIV-infected children had agreed earlier Tuesday to drop their demand that five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor be executed, the advocate for the families said.

"We have notified in writing that the families have relinquished their demand for the execution" of the six medics, Idriss Lagha, the head of the Libyan-based Association for the Families of HIV-Infected Children, told The Associated Press.

Lagha said the families had renounced asking for the death of the medics because they had received all the compensation money they were due under a settlement reached last week.

"All the families have received their cash transfer, one million dollars for each infection," Lagha told AP late Tuesday.

He said the families' association had notified the Gadhafi foundation, which has been acting as a mediator in the case, that all the compensation funds had been handed over.

Some 400 children were infected with the HIV virus, and the son of longtime Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, Seif al Islam, recently told a French newspaper that $400 million in compensation would be paid to the families and would be financed in the form of debt remission.

Seif al Islam heads the Gadhafi International Foundation for Charity Associations, which has steered negotiations to resolve the legal deadlock over the medics' fate.

Bulgaria and other eastern European countries have denied they would cancel Libyan debts to secure the medics' release, but Bulgaria's foreign minister acknowledged Tuesday his country was considering participating in an international fund for humanitarian aid to Libya.

"Since other European countries are involved in the international fund for humanitarian aid, it would be strange if Bulgaria was not interested," Ivailo Kalfin told Bulgarian National radio. "We will consider some form of participation."

Jailed since 1999, the Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor deny having infected the children and say their confessions were extracted under torture.

Experts and outside scientific reports have said the children were contaminated as a result of unhygienic conditions in the hospital where the medics worked. Fifty of the infected children have died.

The Libyan government is under intense international pressure to free the six. The case has become a sticking point in the regime's attempts to rebuild ties with the United States and Europe.

Often referred to as "blood money," compensation for death or suffering is a legal provision in the traditional Islamic code that is widespread in parts of the Middle East.

Ivailo Kalfin, speaking in a radio interview, did not give any further details, but his statement came hours before Libya's Supreme Judiciary Council was expected to review the case.

"We will consider some form of participation," Kalfin said. Asked whether Bulgaria would write off any of Libya's foreign debt to the country, he said: "It is a rule that debt-related operations are not made public."