President Rosen Plevneliev on Tuesday awarded Spain's outgoing Ambassador to Bulgaria Jose Luis Tapia Vicente with a Stara Planina order (Order of the Balkan Mountains).

Plevneliev hailed his work not only as an envoy to Bulgaria, but during the years when Bulgarian medics were held imprisoned in Libya until 2007.

"You showed your sincere sympathy with the Bulgarian people, your sympathy with the Bulgarian medics detained in Libya, whom you personally visited in their prison," the Bulgarian National Radio quotes him as saying.

The ambassador, on the other hand, said he had perceived the visits and his work on a joint EU position on the case as more than his duty, but also as a show of support on behalf of the EU for Bulgaria, which was not a member of the bloc at the time.

Tapia became Spain's Ambassador to Libya in 2000.

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