LONDON -- They came to Libya in search of better-paying jobs. They ended up as pawns in a high-stakes game of geopolitical horse trading.
After enduring more than eight years in prison, including the last three under a death sentence, five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were freed yesterday despite being convicted of infecting more than 400 Libyan children with HIV -- charges most of the world scorned as a frame-up.
But their release came only after the government of Libyan strongman Col. Muammar el Kadafi negotiated a package of concessions that included $400 million in cash for the sick children's families and a pledge to help restore Libya's archaeological sites.
Behind the deal, analysts suggested, was Kadafi's need to save face at home -- hence the cash settlement to the families of the victims. But he also needed to bring an end to an affair that had brought his country international condemnation and stood in the way of political and economic opportunities for his country in Europe.
The European Union, which orchestrated an intense campaign to free the six, was equally eager to restart its dealings with Libya and regain access to its vast oil and natural gas resources.
"Our relations with Libya were to a large extent blocked by the nonsettlement of this medics issue," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said in Brussels, Belgium.
The deal that both sides wanted was completed early yesterday by EU Foreign Affairs Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner and Cecilia Sarkozy, the wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The prisoners were released at 5:45 a.m. local time and immediately boarded a French government plane for Sofia, the Bulgarian capital.
The six had been tried and convicted on charges of deliberately infecting more than 400 patients in a Libyan children's hospital with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Their death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment last week after initial agreement on the $400 million compensation package for families of the victims.
Ostensibly, the prisoners were being returned to Bulgaria to serve out the rest of their sentences, but upon landing in Sofia, they received a presidential pardon. Ashraf al-Hajuj, the Palestinian doctor, was granted Bulgarian citizenship last month.
In Paris, President Sarkozy insisted that neither France nor the European Union has paid "the slightest financial compensation" to Libya, and hinted that the oil-rich emirate of Qatar had been instrumental in settling Libya's monetary demands. Sarkozy also confirmed that he and Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner would be flying to Libya today to begin the processing of normalizing relations with Europe.
Although the deal is being criticized as a form of blackmail, Robin Shepherd, an analyst at Chatham House, a London think tank, said, "You have to understand that Europe feels a tremendous sense of vulnerability to Russia for its oil and gas, and Libya represents an opportunity for diversification that is very tempting."
The EU's haste might also have been spurred by the Bush administration's decision this month to restore full diplomatic relations with Libya for the first time in 35 years.
For the five Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor, the deal brings an end to their long nightmare. Their ordeal began in February 1999, a few months after a Libyan magazine reported that scores of children who treated at Benghazi Children's Hospital had been infected with HIV.
A World Health Organization team quickly concluded that infection had been spread by poor sanitary conditions at the hospital and the reuse of syringes. About 50 children have died.
To deflect blame from itself and to mollify parents, the Libyan government said the six were working secretly at the behest of the CIA and Israel.
Tom Hundley writes for the Chicago Tribune.