Libya protests over Bulgarian pardon of medics

TRIPOLI (AFP) - Libya yesterday summoned a top Bulgarian diplomat in Tripoli to protest against the pardon granted to six foreign medics extradited to Bulgaria earlier in the week, an official said.

The formal protest was delivered to the first secretary of the Bulgarian embassy in Tripoli, the official added.

Bulgarian President Georgy Parvanov on Tuesday pardoned the medics 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 against the six were commuted to life in prison last week. Following a multi-million compensation deal with Tripoli and tough late-night talks, EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner and France's first lady Cecilia Sarkozy then brokered the medics' transfer to Bulgaria on Tuesday.