CECILIA ATTIAS IN AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW FOR BNT

Almost seven years after the release of the Bulgarian nurses from the prison in Lybia, Cecilia Attias was on a visit to Sofia and had a new meeting with them. The former first lady of France played a significant role in the final negotiations with Colonel Gaddafi regarding the release of the five Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor, who were wrongly convicted and imprisoned in Libya.

In an exclusive interview for the BNT programme ‘The Day Begins’, Cecilia Attias expressed her gratitude for the warm welcome when she first visited Bulgaria in 2007. It was the year in which she accompanied the Bulgarian nurses during their return to Bulgaria.

“What I remember most strongly is the successful return of the nurses and the doctor. This memory will stay on my mind and in my life forever”, Cecilia Attias said and added that the Bulgarian nurses are very important people to her.

“The negotiations were rather long. Some representatives of the Libyan government were against the release of the nurses, in fact they were very strongly against it’, she said. “I think that the arguments I used probably impressed them. The resoluteness I used in my approach in Libya, the two trips I made and the negotiations with Colonel Gaddafi ultimately played a role for the outcome”, commented Cecilia Attias.

“Colonel Gaddafi was not in a very normal state, but he knew what he was doing and was listening to what I was saying. He listened to my arguments”, Cecilia added. “I think he realized that the release of the medical workers was necessary if he wanted to improve his image internationally. At the time he strongly needed that”, Cecilia Attias remarked.