Warning: The content of the following may be disturbing

A quote from EU Observer, 3 August 2007

Fresh details are emerging on last month’s release of Bulgarian nurses from detention in Libya, with French daily Le Monde reporting the medics were allowed to leave Libya only after they signed a statement saying they would not sue Tripoli for torture. [...] [B]efore leaving Libya on board a French presidential airplane on 24 July, the five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were obliged to declare in writing that they would not take any legal steps against the Libyan government for torture, maltreatment and abusive detention.

The six had been detained in Libya for over eight years accused by the authorities of infecting children with the AIDS virus – a charge they always denied. It is believed, however, that the medics were forced to make confessions after having been tortured by Libyan authorities, with the freed Palestinian doctor [Ashraf al-Hazouz] saying that the Bulgarian nurses were “raped” in prison, [...]

The six medics’ statement was reportedly signed in Tripoli in the presence of European diplomats, including one Bulgarian official. The signatures were a condition for the medics’ release and formed part of an overall deal between the EU and Libya, which also included the prospect of closer ties between Brussels and Tripoli.

 

A quote from Ashraf al-Hazouz in Der Spiegel, 30 July 2007

I was locked into a room with three dogs during the first few days. They ordered the animals to attack me. My leg is covered with scars from their bites. I had a large hole in my knee. I was served my meals in the bowl they used for the dogs. The five Bulgarian nurses were also being kept in this torture building. Every day our tormentors told us: "We will make you suffer until you confess." The torture periods were carried out between 5 p.m. and 5 a.m.. This went on for months.

One of the things they did was to wrap bare wire around my penis. Then they would drag me around a room that was at least 40 by 40 meters. I screamed and cried. One of the most excruciating things was their electric torture machine – a manually operated box that works like a generator. They would attach the negative cable to a finger and the positive cable to one of my ears or my genitals. The most painful part of it wasn’t the current but the fact that they could change the rate at which it was applied. When I became unconscious they would pour cold water on my naked body and continue the procedure.

During the torture with electrical shocks, they would show me the passports of the five Bulgarian nurses and say: These are Kristiana, Nasya, Valentina, Valya and Snezhana. The nurses suffered the same fate as I did. [...] Sometimes we were tortured in the same room. I saw them half-naked and they saw me completely naked when I was being given the electroshocks. We heard each other whimpering, crying and screeching. Kristiana was hung up on a window while they put me on an iron pallet and applied the electroshocks. I am ashamed to talk about all the things they did to the women. They were raped. Kristiana was forced to put a bottle in her vagina. At one point Nasya, who couldn’t stand it anymore, broke off a piece of window glass and slit her wrist. They took her to the hospital, under a false name, and then they brought her back to our torture chamber.