SOFIA, Oct 2, 2007 (AFP) - More than two months after her release from a Libyan jail, Bulgarian nurse Nasya Nenova's bitterness at spending more than eight years behind bars, many of them on death row, is as raw and deep-rooted as ever.
"We were the victims of an act of terrorism. We were kidnapped, tortured and imprisoned," rages Nenova.
Libyan leader Moamer "Kadhafi made us his scapegoats," she says, adding that Tripoli "must pay."
Nenova was one of six Bulgarian medics freed in July having been held in prison for eight-and-a-half years on charges of infecting more than 400 Libyan children with HIV-tainted blood in a hospital in the northeastern city of Benghazi.
Their return home was, in part, expedited by Cecilia Sarkozy, the wife of French president Nicolas Sarkozy who flew to Tripoli and was on the plane that brought the medics home on July 24.
Nicolas Sarkozy is due to visit Sofia on Thursday.
Nasya says it took her a while to come to terms with the reality of being released and coming home.
"I'm finally getting used to freedom. During the first few days, I was afraid I'd wake up to find myself in prison again," she recalls in her apartment in Sliven, in the east of Bulgaria.
The five Bulgarian nurses and a doctor of Palestinian origin, who had always maintained their innocence, had been sentenced to death three times.
Their release followed a 460-million-dollar deal with the families of the children and tough last-minute negotiations in Tripoli, led by EU Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner.
All six were formally pardoned by Bulgarian President Georgy Parvanov on their return home.
Like Nasya, nurse Valia Cherveniashka says she misses most the lost years with her children, who were adolescents when she was imprisoned, but are now women of 29 and 30.
"I've missed the big mother-daughter moments. Now I only want to look ahead to the future. The past is behind me," says Valia as she dines with her daughter Gergana in a Sofia restaurant.
Both women expressed their gratitude to President Sarkozy and his wife.
"Sarkozy is very special to us. He campaigned for our release right from the beginning of his presidential election campaign," says Nasya.
And Valia recalls: "Cecilia saw us on July 12 and promised she'd take us home. It seemed impossible, but she was full of energy and vitality. And she kept her promise."
Both Valia and Nasya plan to move from the provinces to Sofia where they'll take courses to catch up on all the new developments in the medical profession.
Valia, a pediatric nurse by training, says she loves working with children.
But Nasya says she is thinking of taking an administrative job.
"After all that I've been through, I don't want to take the responsibility for human lives again," she says.
Things have taken an unexpectedly romantic turn for the doctor among the six, Ashraf Alhajouj, who met his fiancee, Olya, on the second day after his release.
Ashraf and Olya plan to marry on December 1. Gergana Grancharova, Bulgaria's minister for European affairs, and the former foreign minister Solomon Passi, are to be the witnesses at the wedding.
While the six may have had their slate wiped clean in Bulgaria and abroad, they still stand accused of the crime in Libya.
Luc Montagnier, the French virologist credited with discovering the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) which leads to AIDS, is working to prove the medics' innocence.
In 2003, Montagnier and Italian professor, Vittorio Colizzi, presented evidence that the AIDS outbreak had been caused by poor hygiene and the multiple use of infected syringes at the hospital long before the arrival of the six foreigners in the late nineties.
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