The saga began in 1998 when Snezhana Dimitrova, Nasya Nenova, Valentina Siropulo, Valia Cherveniashka and Kristiana Valcheva went to Libya in search of better paying jobs. Initially they worked at the Al Fateh Children's Hospital in Benghazi. There were many HIV cases among children at the hospital and the nurses as well as Ashraf Alhajouj, a Palestinian doctor took care of the sick youngsters.

Their stay in Libya turned nightmarish though in 1999. The Libyan police imprisoned 23 medical staff members working at the hospital. Except for the five nurses and the Palestinian doctor, all other workers were released.

Maverick Libyan President Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi said the health workers had deliberately spread HIV among the children at the behest of the CIA and Israel intelligence Mossad. As the absurdity of these accusations was pointed out, the Libyans said the nurses had worked on a secret experiment to find a cure for AIDS. They claimed this experiment went wrong and the children got infected with HIV.

The nurses as well as the doctors were subjected to beating and electric shocks in a bid to get a "confession" out of them. Libyan authorities claimed that they found tainted blood at Valcheva's home. They tortured the nurse asking where she had got the AIDS virus. Eventually they got a confession out of the nurses and the doctor. The confessions were in Arabic and the nurses never knew what they were confessing to.

The following year, Libyan prosecutors convicted the medics of having given HIV-tainted blood to the children. The People's Court agreed with the charges and the medics' imprisonment continued relentlessly.

With mounting international reaction, Qaddafi's son, Seif Islam took matters in his own hands and invited two AIDS experts to look into the case. Dr. Luc Montagnier of France, the co-discoverer of HIV and Dr. Vittorio Colizzi, an Italian virologist, testified at the HIV trial and insisted on the medics' innocence.

Using genetic analysis, the HIV experts found that some of the cases were triggered in 1996-97 more than a year before the arrival of the Bulgarian nurses. An additional finding was that HIV occurred along with hepatitis, which strongly indicated that the route of infection was through the use of unsterile needles.

However this testimony failed to convince the People's court and it handed a death sentence to the medics in 2004. In 2005 the Libyan Supreme Court overturned the convictions of the medics and ordered a retrial.

But the death sentence was again confirmed in December 2006. The turning point in the case arrived when Bulgaria joined the European Union. With powerful backing from the 27-nation association, Bulgaria stepped up efforts to get its citizens released. By now the Palestinian doctor had also become a naturalized Bulgarian citizen.

Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain and subsequently Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany stepped up pressure on Libya to release the medics. By now the United States had started the process of normalizing relations with Libya and perhaps these moves convinced Qaddafi that the HIV medics' case needed to be resolved quickly.

With more than just posturing at stake, Qaddafi laid down a host of conditions including a payment of $400 million - just about $1 million to the family of each infected child. By this time some 50 of the 438 children had died of AIDS.

French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and his wife Cecilia Sarkozy also played an instrumental role in convincing the Libyan leader that his best interests lay in releasing the medics. The EU also promised Libya to help develop its hospitals and other infrastructure. However this agreement needs to be ratified by the full Union.

The release of the medical workers on Tuesday brought to an end an ugly saga which involved geopolitical games. The nurses were happy to be back among families although it will be a long time before their mental state approaches anywhere near normalcy.

The HIV medics’ case is indeed a triumph of diplomacy although some critics are terming it as blackmail. The bottom line is the nurses are back with their loved ones. It now remains to be seen if they are ready to tell their story.

It is a sad commentary that the 400-odd Libyan children are living with potential death sentences hanging over their heads. Most of them are now in their teens and it appears to be a matter of time before they develop AIDS. However it is now clear that foreign medics had no role whatsoever in this unfortunate incident.