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Death sentence ordered for health workers in Libya

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published December 20, 2006

TRIPOLI, Libya - A court convicted five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor Tuesday of deliberately infecting 400 children with HIV and sentenced them to death, despite scientific evidence the youngsters had the virus before the medical workers came to Libya.

The United States and Europe reacted with outrage to the verdict, which prolongs a case that has hurt Libya's ties to the West.

The six have been in jail since 1999 on charges that they intentionally spread HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, at a hospital in Benghazi during what Libya says was a botched experiment to find a cure. Fifty children have died, and the rest have been treated in Europe.

Bulgaria and European officials have blamed the infections on unhygienic practices at the hospital and accuse Libya of making the medical workers scapegoats.

The six co-defendants were convicted and sentenced to death a year ago, but the Libyan Supreme Court ordered a retrial after an international outcry that the first trial was unfair. The case now returns to the Supreme Court for an automatic appeal.

"This sentence was another blow, another shock for us," Zdravko Georgiev, the husband of one of the nurses, Kristiana Valcheva, said from Bulgaria.

Pressure to convict

The case has been deeply politicized from the start. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's government faced intense popular pressure for a guilty verdict, and clashes broke out in Benghazi when the Supreme Court ordered a retrial in December. Libya's second-largest city, Benghazi has been a center for anti-Gadhafi Islamic fundamentalist groups and an innocent verdict could have fueled opposition to the government, particularly if conditions at the hospital were blamed for the infections.

Gadhafi has tried to reach a deal by which Bulgaria would compensate the victims, a proposal Sofia has rejected, saying it would imply the nurses' guilt. The defendants have said they were tortured in detention, and two of the nurses - who are all women - said they were raped. A Libyan court acquitted several Libyan prison officials of the charge.

Tracing the virus

An analysis of HIV and hepatitis virus samples taken from some of the children concluded that the viral strains were circulating at the hospital well before the nurses and doctor arrived in March 1998, according to research published by the journal Nature on Dec. 6 - too late to be submitted in court.

Using changes in the genetic information of HIV over time as a "molecular clock," the analysts concluded the virus was contracted as much as three years before the defendants arrived.

Luc Montagnier - the French doctor who was a co-discoverer of HIV - testified in the first trial that HIV was active in the hospital before the Bulgarian nurses arrived and was probably spread by contaminated needles.

Reaction to the verdict

There is widespread anger in Libya over the HIV infections, and the sentence brought cheers. The Libyan press has long depicted the medical workers as guilty.

After the sentence was pronounced, dozens of relatives outside the Tripoli court chanted "Execution! Execution!" Ibrahim Mohammed al-Aurabi, the father of an infected child, shouted, "God is great! Long live the Libyan judiciary!"

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, meeting with Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin in Washington, said the United States was "very disappointed with the outcome" and urged the medical workers be freed.

In Bulgaria, President Georgi Parvanov and Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev called the ruling "absurd" and urged Libyan authorities "to intervene."

The European Union said it was "shocked" by the verdict. Spokesman Johannes Laitenberger said the EU had not yet decided to take steps against Libya, but he "did not rule anything out." Bulgaria joins the EU on Jan. 1.

[Last modified December 20, 2006, 01:20:14]