Qaddafi: Horse-Trade of Medics for Lockerbie Bomber Possible

Politics | November 24, 2005, Thursday // 00:00

Bulgaria's five nurses and the Palestinian doctor sentenced to death in Libya could be spared if the UK handed over the man convicted for the Lockerbie bombing.

This is what Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi announced in a CNN interview, adding that the medics' faith now lay in the hands of the Libyan court.

Tripoli had informed British and US diplomats that it will free the medical staff on a death row if Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was allowed to serve the remainder of his life sentence in Libya.

According to some reports, the offer was made in the late 1990s, during secret talks to free the five nurses and a doctor accused of deliberately infecting almost 400 children with HIV at a hospital in Benghazi, in northeast Libya.

The disclosure followed mounting speculation that there were plans to repatriate Megrahi to Tripoli to serve the rest of his 27-year sentence. The former Libyan intelligence officer is serving his sentence in Greenock prison after being convicted of the 1988 atrocity in which 270 people were killed.

The court defense of the prisoners, who face execution by firing squad, claim they were framed. They also alleged that they have been repeatedly raped and tortured during their seven years in jail. The hearing of their trial was delayed for January 31, 2006.

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