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Libyan High Court sentences five foreign nurses, doctor to death

Detenus were accused of infecting 400 children with HIV

TRIPOLI (Libya): The High Court in Tripoli on Tuesday convicted five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor of deliberately infecting 400 children with the HIV virus and sentenced them to death, provoking condemnation from the European Union and Bulgaria and shouts of joy in Tripoli.

``God is great!'' yelled Ibrahim Mohammed al-Aurabi, the father of an infected child, as soon as the presiding judge finished reading the verdict in the Tripoli courtroom. ``Long live the Libyan judiciary!''

Bulgaria and the European Union swiftly condemned the decision, with Bulgaria reiterating its belief that the children were infected by unhygienic conditions in their Benghazi hospital.

``Sentencing innocent people to death is an attempt to cover up the real culprits and the real reasons for the AIDS outbreak in Benghazi,'' said Bulgarian Parliamentary Speaker Georgi Pirinski.

Chief Bulgarian counsel Trayan Markovski told Bulgarian National Radio that the defendants would appeal to the Supreme Court. The presiding judge, Mahmoud Hawissa, took only seven minutes to confirm the presence of the accused — who all answered ``yes'' in Arabic — and read the judgment.

The six defendants, detained for nearly seven years, had previously been convicted and condemned to death, but Libyan judges granted them a retrial last year after international protests over the fairness of the proceedings.

An international legal observer, Francois Cantier of Lawyers Without Borders, promptly criticised the retrial for failing to admit enough scientific evidence. Research published this month said samples from the infected children showed their viruses were contracted before the six defendants started working at the hospital in question.

``We need scientific evidence. It is a medical issue, not only a judicial one,'' Mr. Cantier said after the verdict. After the verdict, relatives at the court gates chanted ``execution! execution!''

In Bulgaria, hundreds of people had staged peaceful protests in support of the five nurses on Monday. Europe, the United States and international rights groups have accused Libya of prosecuting the six foreign staff as scapegoats for dirty conditions at the Benghazi children's hospital. Luc Montagnier — the French doctor who was a co-discoverer of HIV — testified in the first trial that the deadly virus was active in the hospital before the Bulgarian nurses began their contracts there in 1998. — AP

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