(24 Jul 2007)
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AP TELEVISION
Tripoli - File
FILE: 16 July 2006
1. Wide of Tripoli city skyline
FILE: 19 December 2006
2. Five Bulgarian nurses and Palestinian doctor Ashraf Alhajouj in court behind bars standing up as their names are read out
10:18:20
AP TELEVISION
Sofia - 24 July 2007
3 Ashraf Alhajouj, released medic, coming down steps of plane
4. People greeting medics
5. Wide of medics and friends and family during photo op
STORYLINE:
Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor sentenced to life in prison in Libya for allegedly contaminating children with the AIDS virus have been released, and left Tripoli on July 24th on board a plane with the French president's wife, Cecilia Sarkozy, France's presidential palace said. The delegation, which had arrived in Tripoli on July 22nd to negotiate their release, included the European Union commissioner for foreign affairs, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, and chief French presidential aide Claude Gueant.
France had been seeking the return home of the six - in jail for the past eight years - as a final goodwill gesture by Libya after it commuted their death sentences in favour of life in prison.
Bulgaria made an official request for Tripoli to repatriate the medics to serve their sentences in Bulgaria. It granted citizenship to the Palestinian doctor, Ashraf al-Hazouz, last month.
Libya accused the six of deliberately infecting more than 400 Libyan children with HIV. The medics, jailed since 1999, deny infecting the children and say their confessions were extracted under torture.
Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were pardoned by Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov on their arrival in Sofia on Tuesday, after spending eight and a half years in prison in Libya.
Bulgarian Foreign Minister, Ivailo Kalfin, announced the pardon shortly after the medics arrived on Bulgarian soil.
"The President of the Republic of Bulgaria is issuing a decree to pardon our compatriots", he said.
The six disembarked and were welcomed on the tarmac by family members who hugged them, one lifting the Palestinian doctor off the ground.
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