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LIBYA. POLICE CLEARED OF TORTURING BULGARIANS
June 7, 2005: nine Libyan policemen and a physician were cleared of torturing five Bulgarian nurses to force them to confess to deliberately infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV.
“The court has decided that all the defendants are not guilty and they were acquitted of the charges against them,” the Tripoli court judge Abdullah Aoun said.
A Libyan court had in May 2004 sentenced the Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to death by firing squad for infecting 426 children in a hospital in the eastern town of Benghazi.
The medics, who have been in jail since 1999, said they were forced to confess.
Bulgarian officials had hoped for guilty verdicts against the policemen which could have helped the nurses in their appeal against their convictions.
The medics said Libya had made them scapegoats rather than admit the HIV infections were caused by poor hygiene.
The Supreme Court was set to rule on their appeal on November 15, 2005.
The nurses’ lawyer Othman Bizanti said they would also launch an appeal against the verdicts.
“The verdict is disappointing of course but is not a final decision ... It certainly raises questions on how efficient Libya’s court system is,” Bulgarian Deputy Foreign Minister Gergana Grancharona said. (Sources: Reuters, 08/06/2005)
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