Nurses deal involved ''immoral game''

LONDON, Aug 8 (Reuters) Six foreign medics were freed from jail in oil-exporter Libya following an ''immoral game'' in which nations pushed their own interests, a son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said in remarks published today.

Saif al-Islam added that their release from eight years' jail was in part thanks to French readiness to push for much more foreign support for the Libyan health sector than European countries had previously offered, Newsweek magazine reported.

The medics, convicted of deliberately infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV, were freed on July 24 after a deal between Tripoli and the European Union on medical support and political links ended their ordeal.

Asked if the medical support, and an earlier financial settlement with the families of the children, amounted to blackmail, Newsweek quoted Saif al-Islam as saying in an interview: ''Blackmail? Maybe. It is blackmail, but the Europeans also blackmailed us.'' ''Yeah, it's an immoral game, but they set the rules of the game, the Europeans, and now they are paying the price ... Everyone tries to play with this card to advance his own interest back home.'' The medics' return to Bulgaria closed what Libya's critics called a human rights scandal and advanced the long-isolated north African's efforts to normalise its ties with the West.

The medics had at one point been condemned to death but have always said they were innocent and had been tortured to confess.

A day after their release, French President Nicolas Sarkozy clinched an accord on defence and signed a memorandum of understanding on nuclear energy during a visit to Tripoli. Libya later said it had secured a weapons deal with a group including European defence and aerospace group EADS.

Sarkozy has denied any connection between the release of the medics and the deals. Saif al-Islam has also said the timing of the deals was a coincidence and that the release itself was purely humanitarian.

Asked what the French offered that other parties had not, Saif al-Islam replied: ''We are talking about hundreds of millions of euros to support the health sector of Libya. And it's not just about money, but about management and technical support ... to run the hospital, to manage the hospital with the French staff and to link it to the French hospitals.

Asked if European nations had previously offered this, he replied: ''They offered, but at a very limited scale.'' Libya commuted death sentences against the six to life imprisonment following the payment of a 460 million dollars financial settlement -- 1 million dollars to each HIV victim's family. That opened the way for the medics' release under Libyan law.

The Libyan-based, international non-governmental organisation which made that payment said it was funded by a loan from a Libyan development fund that would be repaid to Libya by foreign donors as and when voluntary donor contributions became available.

Reuters GT RS1615