BRUSSELS, July 24 (RIA Novosti) - Libya's decision to release five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor, now a Bulgarian national, will help improve relations between the European Union and Libya, an EU commissioner said Tuesday.
The medics, who were convicted and sentenced to death for infecting Libyan children with HIV, arrived in the Bulgarian capital Sofia Tuesday after being freed by Libya under a deal with the European Union on medical aid, trade and improved political ties.
"This decision will open the way for a new and enhanced relationship between the EU and Libya, and will reinforce our ties with the Mediterranean region and the whole of Africa," said EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, who accompanied the medics on their trip to Sofia.
Libyan Foreign Minister Abdul-Rahman Shalqam said his country and the EU agreed to pursue a "full partnership" after the medics' release.
Under the agreement, the EU pledged to provide "life-long treatment" to the infected children as well as assistance to "improve the Benghazi Hospital" where the children were infected, Shalqam said.
The European Commission president welcomed Tripoli's move, saying it will improve trade and political ties with Libya.
"We hope to go on further normalizing our relations with Libya. Our relations with Libya were to a large extent blocked by the non-settlement of this medics issue," Jose Manuel Barroso said.
The EC chief said he had "very long" telephone talks with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi on Monday.
"I assured him [of] our wish to further normalize the relationship between the EU and Libya," Barroso said.
The six medics have been imprisoned in the North African country since 1999 over the infection of over 400 children with the deadly virus in the Mediterranean town of Benghazi, despite intense international pressure to free them.
The medics were found guilty and sentenced to death twice, first in 2004 and then in 2006 after a court appeal.
Bulgaria, the European Union and the United States insisted that the defendants were being used as scapegoats to deflect attention from the poor state of Libya's health service.
Foreign experts, backed up by international scientific reports, testified in court that the infections began before the medics' arrival, and were caused by poor hygiene in the Benghazi hospital.
Libya's Supreme Court overturned the last possible appeal July 11, upholding the death sentences, but the Libyan High Judicial Council's ruling later in July commuted the foreign nationals' sentences to life imprisonment, and Libyan authorities suggested that deportation to Bulgaria was a possibility.
Bulgaria made an official request last Thursday for Tripoli to repatriate the medics to serve their sentences in Bulgaria. Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov pardoned the medics immediately upon their arrival in the country.
Compensation totaling $1 million for each infected child has been paid to the 460 children's families. Fifty-six of the children have died. The cash was raised by an international fund financed mainly by the EU and the U.S.
