Libya asks Arab League to condemn Bulgaria's medics pardon

TUNIS, July 28 (Xinhua) -- Libya has called on other Arab countries to review their ties with Bulgaria in protest at Sofia's pardoning of the six Bulgarian medics that were jailed in Libya for infecting hundreds of children with HIV, said the Libyan government on Saturday, according to news from Tripoli.

Libya has "submitted a memorandum to the Arab League and demanded a review of the Arab position with regard to Bulgaria," Libyan Foreign Minister Abdul-Rahman Mohammad Shalgam told reporters in the Libyan capital Tripoli.

The Libyan government will also seek support from the African Union and the Organization of the Islamic Conference, he said, denouncing Bulgaria's pardoning of the medics as "betrayal" and "illegal."

The five Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian doctor with Bulgarian citizenship had been jailed in Libya since 1999 and were sentenced to death for deliberately causing an HIV outbreak at a Benghazi hospital by infecting 426 children with the AIDS-causing virus.

Their death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment on July 17, and they were sent to Bulgaria on Tuesday under a deal allowing them to serve their life sentences there following mediation by France and the European Union, of which Bulgaria is a member.

But Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov granted them a presidential pardon immediately after their arrival in Bulgaria on Tuesday, arousing strong protest from the Libyan government and the victims' families.