HIV medics pardoned

Sofia: Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor, convicted of infecting Libyan children with HIV, received presidential pardon on Tuesday as soon as they arrived in Sofia.

The medics, who spent more than eight years in a Libyan prison, were sentenced to life in prison in Libya for contaminating 400 children at a Benghazi hospital in the country.

The six arrived on board a plane with French first lady Cecilia Sarkozy and the EU's commissioner for foreign affairs Benita Ferrero-Waldner.

They were welcomed on the tarmac by family members who hugged them,one lifting the Palestinian doctor off the ground.

"I waited so long for this moment," nurse Snezhana Dimitrova said before falling in the arms of her loved ones.

Libya's foreign minister said the six medics were sent home after Libya signed a cooperation accord with the European Union. Another Libyan official had said the deal includes EU medical aid and political ties to Libya.

Bulgaria and its allies in Brussels and Washington have pushed for the release of the six, insisting that they are innocent.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said no payment was made to Libya to secure the release of the six.

"I can quite simply confirm to you that neither Europe nor France have made the slightest financial contribution to Libya," he told a news conference in Paris.

Last week a Libyan judicial council commuted the death sentences against the six to life imprisonment after each of the victims' families received at least $1million settlement.