Head of State Rumen Radev called for the release of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Rumen Radev made his appeal at the ceremony at which he awarded the President's Badge of Honor to the British Ambassador to Libya in the period 2002-2006, Anthony Leyden, for his exceptional services to Bulgaria, demonstrated through personal commitment and professional contribution to the release of the Bulgarian nurses, BTA recalled.
Let me use this solemn moment to give another recognition for remarkable empathy to a French politician - at that time President of France - who, together with his wife, made enormous efforts for the release of our medics, said Radev. Today he is in prison and needs our support and empathy, with which to express our true gratitude. Therefore, I support the declarations of Presidents Petar Stoyanov and Georgi Parvanov, of former ministers, politicians and public figures who have taken the cause of his release as their duty, and I also appeal to European politicians and public figures - to release President Sarkozy, the head of state said.
Nicolas Sarkozy has been serving a five-year sentence since the end of October. He was president of France between 2007 and 2012, Reuters reported. The court decided to send Sarkozy to prison after finding him guilty of conspiring to raise funds for the campaign from Libya.
The Bulgarian medics were arrested in Benghazi on February 9, 1999, and spent a total of 2,755 days in prisons in Libya, BTA recalls. Bulgarian nurses Kristiana Valcheva, Nasya Nenova, Valentina Siropulo, Valya Chervenyashka, Snezhana Dimitrova, Palestinian doctor Ashraf al-Hajjuj, who by then already had Bulgarian citizenship, and Dr. Zdravko Georgiev, returned to Bulgaria on July 24, 2007.
On July 24, 2007, the medics departed for Sofia on a French government plane, accompanied by the wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy - Cecilia Sarkozy, and the European Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighborhood Policy Benita Ferrero-Waldner.