TRIPOLI, 26 July 2006 — Libya was on the verge of building a nuclear bomb before it decided in 2003 to abandon its program to produce weapons of mass destruction, its leader Muammar Qaddafi said, according to the country’s official news agency.
“Libya was on the point of building a nuclear bomb: that is no longer a secret,” Qaddafi was quoted on Monday as telling a group of engineers. “The Americans and the International Atomic Energy Agency were well aware.” In a dramatic move that has seen his former pariah state returned to the international fold, Qaddafi announced in December 2003 that Libya was abandoning plans to build weapons of mass destruction.
Meanwhile, prosecutors yesterday said a Palestinian doctor accused of intentionally infecting Libyan children with HIV had tried to escape from prison. Dr. Ashraf Al-Hazouz and five Bulgarian nurses are charged with infecting more than 400 children with HIV — the virus that causes AIDS — at a hospital in the Libyan city of Benghazi.
