Retrial drags on for six medics in Libyan cover up of hospital inadequacies

Aug 9 2006

The retrial of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor accused of injecting hundreds of Libyan children with the AIDS virus was adjourned again on Tuesday until August 29.

At the retrial five Libyan AIDS experts said they stood by a 61-page report they wrote in 2003 which says that someone had deliberately infected hundreds of children with HIV/AIDS at a Libyan hospital.

The hearing was resumed amid strict security measures and Judge Mahmoud al-Howeissa again rejected a defence request that the accused be allowed free on bail.

The six have now been in prison for seven years and maintain their innocence; all were present in court for Tuesday's hearing.

The six were condemned to death by firing squad in May 2004 after an initial trial in Benghazi in a case that has strained ties between Tripoli and Sofia.

The supreme court eventually ordered a retrial after an appeal last December.

The retrial began on May 11, with hearings being held every 15 days.

The nurses and doctor, who worked in a hospital in the eastern city of Benghazi, have been accused of having infected 426 children with HIV, of whom 52 have since died of AIDS.

The retrial, along with Libya's questionable human rights record, are being seen as hurdles to improved relations with the West just when Washington is in the process of resuming full diplomatic relations after decades of hostility.

The medics, Palestinian Ashraf Alhajouj and Bulgarians Snezhana Dimitrova, Nasya Nenova, Valentina Siropolu, Christiana Valcheva and Valia Cherveniashka have pleaded not guilty and said they had been beaten and tortured to make them confess.

The United states along with Bulgaria and the European Union believe the medics are innocent and have stalled the creation of an aid fund for Libya which analysts believe could give Tripoli a face-saving opportunity to free the six.

International HIV/AIDS experts who testified at the first trial in defence of the accused, stated the outbreak at the hospital where the accused worked, began before they arrived, but they have been denied the right to appear at the retrial.

Tripoli's suggestion that the medics could be freed if Bulgaria pays compensation to the children and their families, they have demanded 4.4 billion euros ($5.5 billion), has been flatly rejected.

Anger in Libya has been fuelled by the deaths of 52 of the HIV-infected children but Bulgaria's deputy foreign minister Feim Chaushev, who has just completed a surprise three-day visit to Tripoli, and says he is confident the Bulgarians would return home soon.

Defence lawyer for the accused Othman Bizanti says the spread of AIDS in the hospital is the result of malpractice of which they have proof and it is the opposite of what the local experts said.

Ramadan Faitori, the spokesman for a group representing the families of the infected children, has praised the local experts' report as "scientific and strong".