'Aids nurses forced to confess'
2006-07-05 08:43
Tripoli - Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor denied infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV at their retrial on Tuesday, saying they had been beaten or tortured to make them confess.
"I am innocent. This is a scenario constructed by the police who beat us to extract false confessions," one of the nurses, Nasya Nenova, said.
Another nurse, Snezhana Dimitrova, said: "We took care of these children as if they were our own."
Nenova, Dimitrova, fellow Bulgarians Valentina Siropolu, Christiana Valcheva and Valia Cherveniashka and Palestinian doctor Ashraf Alhajouj denied conspiring to knowingly infect more than 393 children with HIV at a hospital in Benghazi.
Washington backs Bulgaria
Reading out the charges, judge Mahmoud Haouissa noted that the figure of 393 came from records compiled at an early stage in the investigations. He added without elaborating: "We all know it was more than that."
The five-hour session heard four prosecution witnesses, including a father of one infected child and two mothers of infected children, who said their suspicions were aroused after they saw the medics on several occasions give injections to several children without explanation.
The retrial, as well as questions over Libya's human rights record, had been seen as hurdles to improved relations with the West at a time when Washington was preparing to resume full diplomatic relations with Tripoli after decades of hostility.
Washington had long backed Bulgaria and the European Union in saying that the medics, in jail in Libya since 1999, were innocent.
'Medics were tortured'
At their first trial, the six were convicted of intentionally infecting 426 Libyan children with HIV when they worked in Benghazi Hospital.
In December, the supreme court overturned the convictions, which had resulted in sentences of death by firing squad. Bulgaria and its allies said the medics were tortured to make them confess.
Tripoli had suggested that the nurses could go free if Bulgaria paid compensation to the children and their families, who had demanded $5.5bn. Bulgaria had refused to pay, but had joined the United States, the EU and Libya in agreeing to back the creation of an aid fund.
About 50 of the HIV-infected children had died, fuelling popular anger in Libya, but analysts said the offer of aid might give Tripoli a face-saving opportunity to free the six.
In Sofia, Bulgarian foreign minister Ivailo Kalfin said he was unhappy that the accused faced charges of deliberately infecting the children.
Kalfin said: "I can only express my disappointment that the indictment is upheld. I think in the previous trial it was very clearly proven by a number of experts, including ones invited by the Libyanin side, that we can't speak about tentional infection by our nurses."