"The hardest moment for me was when I was accused of infecting children with AIDS, and I was told if it was not me, to say who it was. All these years I was trying to find the answer to this question, and why it was me who had to take responsibility."

So said Nasya Nenova, one of five Bulgarian nurses who returned from Libya on July 24, speaking at a July 25 news conference.

After eight years spent in Libyan prisons on accusations of deliberately infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV, Nasya, Valentina, Snezhana, Valya, Kristiana and husband Zdravko, as well as Palestinian doctor Ashraf, are now free and innocent in the eyes of all Bulgarians, the EU, the US and perhaps many more.

A day after they took their first steps into a new life, as free citizens, Nasya Nenova and Kristiana Vulcheva, as well as Dr Ashraf al-Hazouz, gave their first news conference at a hall that may never have seen as much media interest.

The medics had all day been undergoing medical tests. Only three attended the news conference. The others were not feeling well. Further information on their state of health was not yet known.

Asked whether they could ever forgive those responsible for the past eight years, Vulcheva said: "there always must be forgiveness". She said she was willing mainly to forgive certain people who were simply doing what they were told, but were not the initial reason for their misery. "It could have happened to anyone, we simply had very bad luck," Ashraf said.

Asked whether the nurses would seek compensation from the Bulgarian Government or the EU, Nenova said they were all still in shock and unable to think of such things at that moment. "I just want my life to be normal again," Vulcheva said.

The answer was similar when they were asked whether they would lay charges against those who they say tortured them into confessions, with Vulcheva saying, "it is too early to say."

Asked their expectations for the future, the nurses and Ashraf said they just wanted a normal life again, better than that of the past eight years.