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Qaddafi's Son Says Foreign Medics Were Tortured


Muammar Qaddafi (file photo) (epa) August 9, 2007 -- The son of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi says six recently freed Bulgarian medics were tortured into confessing they deliberately infected hundreds of Libyan children with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.


Saif al-Islam Qaddafi made his comments in an interview with Al-Jazeera television on August 8. He said the medics "were tortured with electricity, and were threatened that their families would be targeted."


The five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were freed on July 24 after a deal between Tripoli and the European Union.


The medics had been in jail since 1999, and were sentenced first to death and then to life in prison for infecting more than 400 Libyan children with the HIV virus in a hospital in the Libyan city of Benghazi.


(compiled from agency reports)


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