SOFIA

Bulgarian nurses on Friday gave testimony against Libyan jailers who the medics said had tortured them to confess they deliberately infected hundreds of Libyan children with HIV. The six medics were freed on July 24 under a cooperation deal between Tripoli and the European Union, after having spent eight years in a Libyan jail and having been sentenced twice to death.

Bulgaria is considering writing off Soviet-era debt it is owed by Libya to contribute to a deal that led to the release of six medics convicted of infecting Libyan children with HIV. After more than eight years in jail, five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor who recently took Bulgarian citizenship were freed on Tuesday.

Six foreign medics convicted of infecting Libyan children with HIV arrived in Sofia on Tuesday after being freed by Libya under an accord with the European Union. Their release ends what Libya’s critics called a human rights scandal and lifts a barrier to attempts by the long-isolated North African state to complete a process of normalising ties with the outside world.

Bulgaria asked Libya on Thursday to allow it to take custody of six foreign medics jailed for infecting hundreds of children with HIV after Tripoli commuted their death sentences to life imprisonment. After intensive diplomatic talks and payment of hundreds of millions of dollars to the families of 460 HIV victims, Libya commuted the verdicts on Tuesday.

Libya is finalising a deal that would pay the families of 426 children with HIV millions of dollars and pave the way for the release of six foreign medics sentenced to death for infecting them, a source said on Tuesday. The source, close to the delicate negotiations under way in Libya, said an agreement could be announced on Tuesday evening.

Bulgaria’s last three dancing bears are being sent to a mountain sanctuary after activists bought their freedom on Friday in an effort to stamp out the centuries-old tradition that has survived in the Balkans despite being outlawed. The trio will join another 20 brown bears in their new home.

The son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadaffi said five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor condemned to death by a Libyan court had received unjust verdicts and that they would not be executed, a Bulgarian newspaper reported on Monday.

The defence team for five Bulgarian nurses accused of infecting more than 400 Libyan children with HIV-tainted blood, claims psychological-torture measures were used against the nurses, Bulgarian newspapers reported on Thursday. According to reports, the defence gave the court in Tripoli a list of 211 instances in which the nurses were subjected to psychological pressure.

A Bulgarian engineer arrested in Libya in 1999 with five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor, now on retrial for ”knowingly” injecting Libyan children with HIV/Aids-contaminated blood, said on Wednesday he saw the six tortured in detention.

The Balkans are home to Europe’s most inveterate smokers, where 30 to 40% of all adults are gripped by the habit — a major cause of premature death. ”People in that part of Europe smoke the most compared to the continent as a whole,” World Health Organisation director for Europe, Marc Danzon, said on the sidelines of a regional conference on smoking prevention.

Liverpool are on the verge of the Champions League group stages after Fernando Morientes emerged from a recent slump to lift the European champions to a 3-1 win over CSKA Sofia in Bulgaria on Wednesday. Morientes scored twice to leave Rafael Benitez’s side firmly in control of this third qualifying-round tie.

The old East German Trabant, widely reviled as the worst car made to date, had its day in the sun on Monday when 50 of them spluttered along in a <i>concours d’elegance</i>, trailing their telltale wake of oily blue smoke. The procession in the Bulgarian town of Beloslav, coincided with a literature and book fair.

Post-communist Bulgarians have reacted with shock to an increase in nudity and sexual innuendo in advertising, prompting the city fathers of Sofia to set up a committee to police the content of downtown billboards. Bulgarian advertising agencies have protested that they have to provoke in order to be successful.