EU to push for six medics' speedy transfer from Libya

The European Union, along with the US, has called on Libya to transfer five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to its territory, after the Libyan High Judicial Council converted their death penalty into life imprisonment on Tuesday night (17 July).

"The fact that the High Judicial Council did not uphold the death sentence is a first relief", the European Commission president Jose Barroso said. "However, our objective is a solution which allows for the departure of the Bulgarian and Palestinian medical personnel from Libya and their transfer to the EU as soon as possible", he added.

According to Bulgaria's foreign minister Ivailo Kalfin, negotiations on the transfer of the medics will get under way later today (18 July). "This decision is a big step in the right direction... For us the case will end once they come back to Bulgaria," he was cited as saying by the BBC.

Tripoli, for its part, has already indicated it was willing to consider the medics' return to Bulgaria based on a 1984 extradition deal. "There is a legal co-operation agreement between Libya and Bulgaria and we don't mind that the Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor benefit from it," Libya's foreign minister Abdel-Rahman Shalqam told the AP.

The six medics have been jailed in Libya since 1999, after an outbreak of HIV among children at a Benghazi hospital. In 2004, they were convicted and sentenced to death for intentionally starting the epidemic.

Tuesday's decision by the Libyan panel comes after a deal with victims' families – something orchestrated by the Gaddafi Foundation, led by the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's son. Families signed a declaration, claiming they no longer insist on the death penalty, and in return received payments – one million dollars each. "

"This is indeed good news", EU external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero–Waldner said on Tuesday (17 July), following the announcement. She also stressed the bloc would "stand by [its] commitments to continue assisting the children, their families and the Benghazi hospital in fighting the scourge of HIV/AIDS".