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Libya spares six in HIV case

The death sentences of five Bulgarians and a Palestinian are commuted.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published July 18, 2007

TRIPOLI, Libya - The death sentences for five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor accused of infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV have been commuted to life in prison, Libya's foreign minister said Tuesday.

The ruling came after the families of the children each received $1-million and agreed to drop their demand for the execution of the six, who deny having infected more than 400 children and say their confessions were extracted under torture.

Idriss Lagha, a spokesman for the children's families, indicated the money was coming through an international "humanitarian" fund from several countries, including the European Union, United States, Bulgaria and other Balkan nations, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Libya remains under intense international pressure to free the medical workers, and Foreign Minister Abdel-Rahman Shalqam said Tripoli was willing to consider the medics' deportation to Bulgaria. He said negotiations would take place within "the legal framework and political context" between the two countries.

"In return (for a transfer), improving the conditions of the infected children and their families should be taken into account," he said.

Bulgaria's chief prosecutor, Kamen Mihov, said requests would be made today to have the medics leave Libya shortly. They have been jailed since 1999.

The medics' main Libyan defense lawyer, Osman al-Bizant, told the Al-Jazeera television network that their deportation would depend on "whether there is the possibility of carrying out the punishment there (in Bulgaria)."

Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin called the ruling by Libya's Supreme Judiciary Council "a huge step in the right direction." Asked whether it was possible the medics would be pardoned after returning home, Kalfin said: "All judicial options are real."

Experts and outside scientific reports have said the children were contaminated as a result of unhygienic conditions at a hospital in Benghazi. Fifty of the children died.

Libya's Supreme Court upheld the death sentences last week, but Shalqam said the Supreme Judiciary Council decided Tuesday to commute the sentences to life in prison. The council is a government body that can overrule the court. "Issuing this decision automatically closes the legal case against them," he said.

The United States and European Union welcomed the move, but urged the release of the six.

[Last modified July 18, 2007, 01:52:33]