Bulgarian medics arrive home after more than 8 years in prison in Libya

Six medics who been sentenced to life in prison in Libya for allegedly infecting children with HIV arrived in Sofia on Tuesday, and immediately received a presidential pardon allowing them to walk free after 8 1/2 years behind bars.

The five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were flown from Tripoli to Sofia on board a plane with French first lady Cecilia Sarkozy and the EU's commissioner for foreign affairs, Benita Ferrero-Waldner.

Last week, Tripoli had agreed to a Bulgarian request to allow the six to serve the rest of their sentence at home.

"Led by the firm conviction in the innocence of the Bulgarian citizens sentenced in Libya and fulfilling his constitutional rights, the president signed a decree for pardon and releases them of their sentences," Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin said.

The six came down the steps from the airplane and were welcomed on the tarmac by family members who hugged them, one lifting the Palestinian doctor off the ground.

"I waited so long for this moment," nurse Snezhana Dimitrova said before falling in the arms of her loved ones.

From the airport, the medics were whisked to a government residence in the capital, where they will spend the next few days with their relatives and away from the intense media coverage of their release.

Libya had accused the six of deliberately infecting more than 400 Libyan children with HIV. Fifty of the children died. The medics, jailed since 1999, deny infecting the children and say their confessions were extracted under torture.

The six originally had been sentenced to death, but that was later commuted to life in prison.

Kristiana Valcheva, one of the released nurses, told reporters at the airport that throughout their time in prison, they had kept alive the hope of freedom.

"We were afraid even to say aloud what we dreamed about," Valcheva said with tears in her eyes.

"Now I still can't believe that I am standing on Bulgarian soil. We were told the news at 4 o'clock in the morning and we left the jail at quarter to six to board the plane," she said. "Now I will try to get my previous life back."

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose wife flew to Libya on Sunday along with Ferrero-Waldner, said that neither the European Union nor France paid money to Libya for the release. However, he said Qatar mediated the release and hinted the Gulf country may have had a broader role in resolving the crisis.

He also announced that he and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner would be visiting Libya on Wednesday in a bid to "help Libya rejoin the international community."

The French presidential palace said earlier that the deal included measures to improve the medical care of children with AIDS in Libya. It did not provide further details.

In Brussels, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the EU would move to improve trade and political ties with Libya after the release.

"We hope to go on further (on) normalizing our relations with Libya. Our relations with Libya were to a large extent blocked by the non-settlement of this medics issue," Barroso told reporters.

He said the 27-nation bloc could move to include Libya in regional trade and aid ties with other Mediterranean countries.

Libyan Foreign Minister Abdul-Rahman Shalqam said Libya and the EU agreed to develop a "full partnership," with the Europeans promising a package of aid to develop Libyan hospitals and other infrastructure.

The five Bulgarian nurses traveled to Libya nearly a decade ago, attracted by promises of higher paying jobs. They were sent through a Bulgarian recruitment agency to al-Fath Children's Hospital in Libya's second largest city of Benghazi. The nurses were arrested the year after their arrival.

Some 60,000 Bulgarians were employed in the country in the 1980s, according to Libyan officials, before the U.N. imposed sanctions in 1993 and the links between the two nations weakened.

___

Associated Press writers Khaled El-Deeb in Tripoli, Libya, Christine Ollivier in Paris and Constant Brand in Brussels, Belgium, contributed to this report.