SOFIA, 11 August 2007 — Six Bulgarian medics freed in July after spending more than eight years in a Libyan prison told an investigation commission yesterday in Sofia how they were subjected to torture in jail.
Their testimony came two days after Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s son confirmed in a television interview that the six had been subjected to electric shocks during their detention. The medics — a Palestinian-born doctor who has become a Bulgarian citizen and five female Bulgarian nurses — were convicted of deliberately infecting over 400 Libyan children with the HIV virus at a hospital in Benghazi where they worked.
But they were pardoned by Bulgarian authorities when they returned home last month under a compensation deal worked out with the children’s families.
The doctor, Ashraf Juma Hajuj, had described how they were “treated like animals” and subjected to electric shocks, beatings and sleep deprivation.
Qaddafi’s son Saif Al-Islam, who helped negotiate the medics’ release, acknowledged in an Al-Jazeera television interview broadcast Wednesday that “the question of torture... has been established. “What the Palestinian doctor said is true and I have given him and his family lots of help. There was torture by electricity... they scared them... I mean there was a threat of aggression against their families,” Saif Al-Islam said. He said there were “also lies” in the Palestinian doctor’s statements, but added “that does not mean there was no torture.”
The Bulgarian investigation commission was launched at the beginning of the year to determine whether charges could be filed against Libya on behalf of the six medics. It was instigated by revelations made by the families of the nurses, who were still on death row in Libya at the time.
Margarita Popova, spokeswoman for the Bulgarian prosecutor’s office, said yesterday that “after the investigation has been completed, charges may be formulated based on the evidence collected.”
