Aids doc to testify in Libya

2003-08-04 19:18

Sofia - Luc Montagnier, the French doctor who isolated the Aids virus, will testify at the trial of a Palestinian and six Bulgarian medical workers accused of spreading the pandemic in Libya, Bulgarian radio reported on Monday.

It said Italian AIDS researcher Vittorio Colizzi, who co-wrote a report Montagnier submitted to the Libyan authorities in April, would also testify before the court hearing the case in Benghazi, east of Tripoli.

Six Bulgarians - five nurses and a doctor - as well as a Palestinian doctor working at a hospital in Benghazi were arrested in 1998 on charges of infecting 393 Libyan children with the HI-virus through tainted blood products.

Aids-related diseases have already killed at least 23 of the children at the Al-Fateh children's hospital.

The court case was on Monday postponed until September 3.

The case was thrown out for lack of evidence in 2002 but the prosecution refiled charges and the Benghazi judicial authorities decided in August last year that it should be reopened.

The medics have been in prison for almost three years and face the death penalty if found guilty.

- AFP