MEDICAL STAFF RELEASED ONLY AFTER AGREEING NOT TO SUE

Details are emerging of the behind-the-scene deals that lead to the release of the medical personnel recently released by Libya. It seems the rights of those wrongly imprisoned were not an EU priority:

[Le Monde] reported on Thursday (2 August) that before 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 waiver had been agreed at high EU level, with Le Monde quoting the spokesman of French president Nicolas Sarkozy as saying "this was the subject of an exchange of letters between the European Union and Libya."

And despite Sarkozy's denials, it appears the Libyans are to receive French weaponry as part of the ransom:

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's son has said that an armaments deal between France and Tripoli was the main reason for the release last month of six medics held in Libya.

Seif al-Islam Gadhafi told French daily Le Monde on Wednesday that the brokered deal included the sale of French Milan anti-tank missiles as well as joint Franco-Libyan manufacture of military equipment.

Sounds like a money-spinner for the French armaments industry.