A $460 million Libyan loan that helped win freedom for six foreign medics convicted of infecting Libyan children with HIV is due to be repaid as and when donors make resources available, a humanitarian body said today.
The Benghazi International Fund said that it had made a payment of $460 million this month to the children's families, a move Libya says was compensation that made possible a government decision to commute death sentences on the six to jail terms.
The European Union then struck a cooperation deal with Tripoli that allowed the five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to be freed on July 24th and flown to Sofia, where they were pardoned upon their arrival by Bulgaria's president.
The move was seen as a move towards normalisation of relations between European countries and OPEC member Libya, now trying to re-enter the international mainstream after years of isolation over what the West called its support of terrorism.
Human rights advocates have raised concerns over the series of events and sought more clarity over any payments made, saying the European Union must not reward Tripoli with full ties. Bulgaria has been at pains to say it does not approve of the notion of compensation, as this would imply the nurses were guilty. The nurses, who spent years in detention, said they were innocent and were tortured to confess.
The fund, echoing statements by Libyan government officials, said in a statement received in Rabat that the settlement had been financed by a loan it had received from a Libyan official fund called the Economic and Social Development Fund (ESDF).
The Benghazi International Fund, a Libyan-based non-government association formed to help the children and solve the dispute surrounding the nurses' case, added that it would repay the loan subject to the availability of funds provided voluntarily by donors.
The statement said: "According to the agreement ... the Fund will use contributions other than those earmarked for medical support to reimburse the ESDF "in payments phased in accordance to what it (the Fund) receives in contributions". "Consistent with its Statutes, the Fund will receive contributions on a purely voluntary basis and for humanitarian purposes. No contributor is committed to any compulsory refunding."