BULGARIAN MEDICS ARE FREE!!! 

Welcomed by hugs, flowers, an outpouring of emotion and a phalanx of dignitaries, Bulgaria’s six medics stepped on to home soil just before 10am local time on July 24 2007.

The French presidential aircraft delivered them to Sofia Airport from Libya, where they have been in detention for more than eight years. Soon after the door opened, the medics were the first to appear on the walkway.

As they reached the foot of the stairs, their families rushed to them with hugs and kisses.

Also there to greet them were several high-ranking Bulgarian officials, including Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin. Also present was French ambassador Etienne de Poncins. The European Commission was represented by its senior official in Sofia, Michael Humphreys.

Photographers crowded around for the moments of reunion. The event was broadcast live on all Bulgaria’s national television channels.

Also on the flight were French first lady Cecilia Sarkozy and European External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner. The French delegation had been in Libya in recent days negotiating the medics’ release. The medics were earlier given life sentences, commuted from previous death sentences, for deliberate infection of hundreds of Libyan children with HIV, charges denied by the medics and rejected by Bulgaria and many other countries.

The medics’ return followed the payment of millions of dollars in a financial settlement to the Libyan childrens’ families, and the more recent negotiations involving European Commission and French representatives