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Posted By Adam Anderson
August 7, 2007
Late last month, a doctor and five nurses returned home to Bulgaria after spending eight and a half years in a Libyan prison following their conviction of infecting children with HIV. The six, who were originally sentenced to life in prison, were freed by Libya following diplomatic efforts from the European Union commissioner for foreign affairs, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, and chief French presidential aide Claude Gueant.
The Bulgarians were freed after a high-profile visit to Tripoli by President Nicolas Sarkozy's wife, Cecilia. A day after their release, the French president himself flew to Libya to sign trade and health deals.
A $400m arms deal between the two countries, considered the first between Tripoli and any Western state since the European Union lifted an arms embargo in 2004, will cover the sale of Milan anti-tank missiles and a radio communications system from subsidiaries of the European defence and aerospace group EADS.
The timing of the agreements raised speculations about whether they were related to the Bulgarians’ release.
A French presidential aide and a top manager in the European aerospace company EADS both denied Saturday any connection between the two incidents. In Tripoli, the son of Libyan leader Moamar Kadhafi, by Saif Kadhafi, who first announced the deal on Thursday, also denied any link, saying that the arms sales had been under discussion for months.
Despite that, the deal faces strong opposition in France.
According to an editorial on the BBC, Socialist Party leader Francois Hollande is concerned about how the news emerged. “How can we tolerate in a democracy that an arms deal should be announced by Gaddafi's son?" he said last Friday.
He also said that his investigations showed that the French foreign and defence ministries had no idea about any agreement what so ever between the two countries.
But Hollande’s allegations were denied by Defence Minister Herve Morin, who said that a special committee on arms sales had approved the deal in February -- three months before Sarkozy’s election.
Claude Gueant, secretary general of the Elysee palace, also said that the possibility of a deal in exchange for Libya's release of the Bulgarian medics was 'a subject that never came up in our discussions.'
The French government should prepare itself for a tough ride when parliament reconvenes next month because it’s obvious that the left-wing opposition is not satisfied with the official explanations.
Even the media isn’t not backing up Sarkozy. “Doubts remain”, Le Monde newspaper wrote in its Friday issue. "By trying to convince us that the new president and his wife pulled off the happy outcome, on their own, by their sheer persistence in negotiations, the Elysee was inviting a backlash."
Indeed doubts remain, and the real reason behind the Bulgarians’ release may never be known!
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