Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President, has been awarded the Stara Planina medal, Bulgaria's highest honor for his role in facilitating the freeing of six Bulgarian medics who had been in jail for several years in Libya. Bulgarian President Georgy Parvanov gave him the award personally.

His wife, Cecilia Sarkozy, who was a key player in the release, was not present. She had traveled to Libya to broker the release of the medics and traveled back with them on a French presidential plane.

One day after the medics' release, Nicolas Sarkozy went to Tripoli and signed major trade agreements with Libya. Some opposition politicians in France have openly wondered whether these trade deals depended on the release of the prisoners. Mr. Sarkozy says the two incidents are not linked.

The six Bulgarian medics, five nurses and a Palestinian doctor who was naturalized Bulgarian recently, convicted of deliberately infecting about 438 children at a Libyan hospital with HIV were freed in July this year. A few weeks previously they had been sentenced to death by a Judicial Council, then the death sentences were lifted, and then the medics were free.

The six medics had to endure over eight years in prison. Their original 'confessions' of deliberately infecting the children were obtained as a result of torture, they claim.

In theory, the six were to serve the rest of their life sentences in a Bulgarian prison. However, as soon as they landed in Sofia they received a presidential pardon. Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin, said "Led by the firm conviction in the innocence of the Bulgarian citizens sentenced in Libya and fulfilling his constitutional rights, the president signed a decree for pardon and releases them of their sentences."

Bulgarian authorities and the European Union have always insisted that the six are not guilty and had not been willing to pay compensation as this may have been seen as an admission of their guilt.

President Sarkozy insists that neither France nor the European Union has paid any money to Libya.

Libya knows that Europe feels vulnerable and worries about its level of dependency on Russian oil and gas - which Libya has in abundance. Many feel that the medics have been used as pawns by Libya.

Experts backed the medics

Foreign experts say the infection of the children started happening before the six medics ever started working at the hospital. A World Health Organization team concluded that the infections happened because of shocking hygiene standards - the reuse of syringes at the hospital was common practice.

Dr Tulio de Oliveira and Dr Oliver Pybus, Oxford University, wrote in Nature "All the lines of scientific evidence point in the same direction, towards a long standing infection control problem at the hospital, dating back to the mid 1990s or earlier."

Dr Thomas Leitner, Los Alamos National Laboratory, who has provided forensic evidence in many HIV cases, wrote in Nature that there was "compelling evidence that the outbreak had started before the accused started working at the hospital."

When the children started getting ill, Libya accused the government of Bulgaria, the CIA and Israel of a conspiracy.

Many health care professionals say this whole situation is a dreadful tragedy. Children became infected because of incompetence, innocent people were punished, and the guilty parties were never brought to justice. Some wonder how many other children have and will become infected if the hygiene problem is not addressed properly.

Chronology of Events:

-- 1999
Libyan authorities arrest 19 Bulgarian medics and 1 Palestinian doctor after children started becoming sick with HIV infection.

-- 1999
13 medics are freed.

-- September 2003
French doctor, Luc Montagnier, testifies that the hospital epidemic was most likely caused by poor hygiene, and that it began before the accused started working at the hospital.

-- 2004
One doctor is freed. Libya convicts and sentences the Palestinian doctor and five Bulgarian nurses for deliberately infecting children with HIV.

-- December 2005
A retrial is re-ordered by the Libyan Supreme Court after overturning the convictions.

-- Summer 2006
More experts say the evidence is compelling that the children had been infected before the medics started working at the hospital.

-- December 2006
The six medics are sentenced to death again.

-- February 2007
An appeal is made to the Libyan Supreme Court.

-- June 2007
EU officials meet with Libyan officials. Their aim is to have the medics released.

-- July 2007
Libyan Supreme Court upholds death sentences.

-- July 2007
Death sentences commuted to life imprisonment.

-- July 2007 24th
Six medics are freed. Fly to Sofia, where they receive a Presidential pardon.