Medics tortured into HIV confession -Gaddafi's son

DUBAI, Aug 9 (Reuters) Foreign medics freed from a Libyan jail were tortured into confessing they deliberately infected hundreds of Libyan children with HIV, a son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said in remarks broadcast today.

The five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were freed on July 24 after a deal between Tripoli and the European Union, having spent eight years in jail.

The lawyer of the Palestinian doctor told Reuters on Tuesday the doctor was tortured into confessing he deliberately infected the children and that he planned to a complain to a UN human rights panel.

Gaddafi's son confirmed the allegation of torture in an interview with Qatar-based Al Jazeera television.

''There was torture with electricity...there was a threat to attack their families,'' Saif al-Islam said.

Some of the children were infected with the virus that causes AIDS before the medics arrived in Libya and one case was reported after their arrest, he said.

''There is negligence, there is a disaster that took place, there is a tragedy, but it was not deliberate.'' A Libyan court acquitted nine Libyan policemen and a doctor of torturing the medics.

International scientists say they have shown the HIV subtype began infecting the children before the foreign medics arrived.

The medics, who were sentenced to death on two occasions, have always maintained their innocence and said they confessed under torture. Bulgaria and other EU governments had also said the medics were innocent and called for their release.

Western scientists have said Libya's inefficient health-care system was the real culprit for the HIV infection.

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.

REUTERS GL KN1726