'We refuse all negotiations'
2005-06-14 13:06
Tripoli - The families of child victims infected with Aids in a Libyan hospital on Monday refused to consider any compromise concerning the fate of six foreign medics facing death sentences over a tainted blood scandal.
In May 2004 five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were condemned after being convicted of deliberately infecting with the Aids virus more than 380 children, 47 of whom later died.
In a statement, the victims' families criticised the stance taken by Bulgaria and the European Union (EU), accusing them of "not respecting the basis of democracy in the world, including the independence of the judicial system in free and sovereign nations".
Last year the Libyan government, in a move to allow the six convicts to be freed, sought compensation for the victims' families equal to that paid out by Libya to relatives of those killed in a bomb attack on a Pan Am plane over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988. Bulgaria refused the request.
"Faced with the tragedy of our children and the world's indifference, we are announcing our commitment to the verdict being carried out on the condemned and we refuse all negotiations and all compromises or bargaining in this matter," said the statement, signed by the 'families and close relatives of the child victims of the Aids crime in Benghazi".
The case centres around a hospital in Libya's eastern port of Banghazi.
The six medics, who have been held for six years, were convicted last year. On May 31 the Libyan High Court postponed until November a decision on whether an appeal against their death sentences can be heard.
On Tuesday, a Libyan court acquitted 10 police officers accused of having used torture to extract confessions from the six condemned medics.
The EU said it was "seriously concerned" by the acquittals.
EU external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, who recently visited Tripoli to press for the release of the condemned nurses and doctor, reiterated a call for a rethink of the case in a supreme court ruling.