Seif al-Islam Gadafy, the son of Libyan leader Muammar Gadafy, told al-Jazeera TV in an interview broadcast Wednesday that the six foreign medical workers recently released after eight years of imprisonment for infecting Libyan children had indeed been tortured.

He affirmed accounts by the six that Libyan authorities had tortured them with electricity and threatened their families in order to get them to confess to having deliberately infected the over 400 children.

Palestinian doctor Ashraf al-Hazouz and five Bulgarian nurses faced the death sentence until their transfer to Bulgaria last month. The Bulgarian government’s decision to pardon them after their release has sparked protests from the Libyan government.