DAR AL HARB/ISLAM - BULGARIA/LIBYA: QADAFI'S SON ADMITS THAT THE BULGARIAN NURSES WERE TORTURED

Seif al-Islam Makes a Confession: Bulgaria's Nurses were Tortured

The son of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi admitted that the Bulgarian nurses, who were freed last month after eight years of confinement in the North African country, have been tortured.

"Yes, they were jolted with electricity and were threatened that their families will be persecuted," Seif al-Islam told Qatar-based Al Jazeera news channel in what comes as yet another frank confession following his former pariah state's nukes-for-Bulgarian nurses deal with France.

Seif al-Islam described once again the trial as politics of blackmail, but denied it was the Libyan side that started it. According to him Europe started the immoral game, while Libya just had scores to settle with the West and used the case with the medics to solve them in its favour.

He underlined that he believes in the impartiality of the Libyan judicial system and thanked Qatar for the key role that it played and its cooperation with France in bringing the case to an end.

Seif al-Islam ruled out the possibility of Libya being taken to court over the allegations of torturing the medics into confessions and denied as untrue the stories that the sixth medic, Palestinian-born Ashraf Al-Hadjudj, recounted from the times of his imprisonment.

The Bulgarian nurses have complained of severe torture during their police interrogation, saying they were jolted with electricity, beaten with sticks and repeatedly jumped on while strapped to their beds. Two of the women said they were raped.

During a two-hour interview for the New York Times Ashraf Al-Hadjudj recounted how he was kept in a room with three dogs and was also beaten. With his knees bent against his chest, he said, his hands and feet were tied around his legs. Then the police put the bar on a metal stand and spun him around "like a roasted chicken."

He said that for months he was forced to sleep with his hands tied behind his back, hanging from a wall. From that time on, Dr. Hazouz said, most of his perceptions of time became blurred. He could recall that the torture usually lasted until the morning call to prayer came from a nearby mosque. One of the more common tortures, he said, was to send electrical shocks to different parts of his body as he lay strapped naked to a bed.

Nine Libyan security officers and a doctor were charged and later acquitted of torturing the medics to extract confessions that they deliberately infected 426 children with the HIV virus that causes AIDS in a Benghazi hospital.

At the end of June 2006 a Libyan court rejected the appeal of the five Bulgarian medics on the acquittal of the Libyans, saying the evidence against the policemen was too weak to convict them.



Pertinent Links:

1) Seif al-Islam Makes a Confession: Bulgaria's Nurses were Tortured