LONDON — Libya is the land of make-believe, and from a safe distance it can seem comical. The 65-year-old teenager who runs the place, Col. Moammar Gadhafi, has an even stronger commitment to fashion than my 15-year-old daughter (although she has much better taste). But it's a very ugly regime close up.
After eight years in a Libyan jail, Kristiana Valcheva was awakened at 4 in the morning last Tuesday and told that she would be freed. Two hours later she was on her way home to Bulgaria, where President Georgi Parvanov "pardoned" her, four other Bulgarian nurses, and a Palestinian doctor for crimes they had never committed.
"You know that hope dies last," she said as the long nightmare ended. "We always had hope, although we were quite skeptical and were afraid to say it."