GADHAFI'S SON ADMITS TORTURE

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's son, who is touted as a reformer, has acknowledged that Bulgarian medical workers jailed for allegedly infecting children with HIV were tortured in captivity, an admission apparently aimed at showing a more open face to the West. Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, shown in a 2002 photo, has been touted as a reformer. The release last month of the five nurses and a doctor after nearly nine years in prison boosted Libya's ties with Europe, a key goal of the elder Gadhafi.

But since their release, Dr. Ashraf al-Hazouz, a Palestinian who was granted Bulgarian citizenship, and some of the nurses have spoken frequently in the European media of the torture they underwent to force them to confess to infecting the children with the AIDS virus. They have since retracted the confessions and denied infecting the children.

With the admission, the Libyan leader's son, Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, may have been trying to put the torture issue aside and burnish his own credentials as a candid promoter of change in the long-isolated nation.

"Yes, they (the medics) were tortured by electricity and they were threatened that their family members would be targeted," he said in an interview with the pan-Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera, excerpts of which were aired Wednesday.

The younger Gadhafi made no apology for the torture in the excerpts and even cast doubt on al-Hazouz's specific allegations of mistreatment, saying "a lot of what the Palestinian doctor has claimed are merely lies."

Al-Hazouz accused Gadhafi's son of acting in his own self interest. "Seif al-Islam always tells only a part of the truth, manipulating the media," the doctor told The Associated Press. "I told the full truth ... All of us were tortured like animals."

Later Thursday, al-Hazouz repeated many of his allegations of torture to Al-Jazeera, saying the medics were subjected to "electricity, beatings, sleep and food deprivation."

"They threatened to rape me and they threatened to rape one of my sisters," he added. Snezhana Dimitrova, one of the nurses, said she was glad Gadhafi's son had told the truth. "The fact that a Libyan and the son of Gadhafi at that has told the truth is very gratifying and I thank him for it," she told the AP.

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BLACKWATER YOU SAY?

BAGHDAD, Sept 28—The bodies of a murdered Sunni Iraqi police lieutenant and his wife were recovered in Baghdad's Adhamiyah neighborhood three days ago, a US army statement said on Friday. The couple had been abducted several days before by Sunni insurgents, the statement quoting a relative as saying, adding that the bodies were discovered dumped in a pile of trash beneath a pedestrian overpass in the Sunni-dominated neighborhood of Adhamiyah in Baghdad. Both victims appeared to have been killed by gunshot wounds to the head.

The police lieutenant also had drill holes in his face that indicated he was tortured before being executed, said 1st Lieutenant Daniel Lake with the 3rd Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment of the US unit responsible for security in the Adhamiyah area. Lake said the lieutenant and his wife; both Sunnis, were most likely targeted by Sunni terrorists associated with al-Qaeda in Iraq or Islamic Government of Iraq because of their involvement with security efforts.