June 20, 2007
Five Bulgarian nurses and a
Palestinian doctor sentenced to death
for infecting Libyan children with HIV
will find out the result of an appeal
launched on Wednesday by July 11.
However, an official from a foundation
run by the son of Muammar Gaddafi,
Libya's leader, said a decision on the
medics' future could be reached as
early as Friday.
The six medics have spent the last
eight years in a Libyan prison and
maintain their innocence saying their
confessions were extracted under
torture.
"A statement on a deal between
the families of the children suffering
from Aids and the European Union will
be announced on Friday," said the
official from the foundation run by
Seif al-Islam.
Compensation deal
The official said the two parties
agreed on a Friday announcement
following a visit to Libya last week
of two European diplomats.
Their deal is independent of a final
appeal launched on Wednesday in a
Tripoli court.
Judge Fathi Dhan earlier told a court
in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, that
the supreme court would announce its
decision on July 11.
The court is widely expected to uphold
the death sentences, a move that would
leave the fate of the medics in the
hands of Libya's high judicial
council, a government-led body which
has the power to commute sentences.
Political analysts say the council
would be likely to let the nurses
return to Bulgaria if a deal to
compensate the families of the
HIV-infected children can be reached.
"I ask you, the just court, to
restore freedom to these women who
have been deprived of it for eight
years," Plamen Yalnazov, a
Bulgarian lawyer, told the court,
which heard arguments from both
defence and prosecution lawyers.
Seif al-Islam has said he expected
compensation for the infected
childrens' families to be worked out
between the Bulgarian government and
the EU.
"Immediately after the verdict,
we will begin to work... on a package
[of measures] with a view to a
solution," Islam told Italy's
Corriere della Sera newspaper.
Citizenship
Bulgaria said on Tuesday it had
granted citizenship to Ashraf Alhajouj,
the Palestinian doctor, a decision
that could help bring him out of Libya
if the verdicts are eventually
commuted under a possible compensation
deal.
"In case of a favourable
development in the case, he can be
brought back to Bulgaria with the
nurses under the legal agreement with
Libya," Ivailo Kalfin, the
Bulgarian foreign minister, told
reporters in Bulgaria, referring to a
long-standing agreement which allows
for prisoner exchanges.
The five nurses, Nasya Nenova,
Snezhana Dimitrova, Valentina Siropolu,
Christiana Valcheva and Valia
Cherveniashka, worked along with
Alhajouj at a hospital in the
country's second city of Benghazi
where the injections occurred in the
late 1990s.
Talks between the EU and the
association of families resumed last
month with both sides citing progress
and saying they hoped for a deal soon.
The association wants around $14m for
each family.
Bulgaria has refused to pay, saying it
would be an admission of guilt.
It has set up a solidarity fund along
with the EU and the US to provide
medical aid and financial support to
the children and their relatives.
The medics were first arrested in
February 1999 and sentenced to death
in May 2004 after being convicted of
infecting 438 children with
HIV-tainted blood.
The accused have denied the charges
saying they were tortured and foreign
health experts, led by the Aids virus
discoverer Luc Montagnier, have said
the epidemic in Benghazi, Libya's
second city, was probably the result
of poor hygiene.
Timeline
February 1999- 19 Bulgarian medical
workers are detained in an
investigation into how children in a
hospital in Benghazi became infected
with HIV. 13 are later freed.
2000 - Trial opens against six
Bulagarians, a Palestinian doctor and
nine Libyans. The medics claim the
confessions at the centre of the case
wre extracted through torture.
September 2003 - Luc Montagnier, a
French doctor and Aids expert,
testifies the epidemic broke out the
year before the Bulgarians arrived.
May 2004 - Five Bulgarian nurses and
the Palestinian doctor are found
guilty and sentenced to death. The
Bulgarian doctor is released and nine
Libyans acquitted.
June 2005 - Nine Libyan policemen and
a doctor are acquitted of torturing
the medics.
December 2005 - The supreme court
overturns the death sentences, sending
case back to a lower court for
retrial.
January 2006 - Victims of the families
demand $5.9 billion in compensation.
December 2006 - After a seven month
retrial, the six medics are again
found guilty and sentenced to death.
January 2007 - The son of Muammar
Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, says the
six will not be executed.
May 2007- Charges against the six of
defaming a Libyan policeman and doctor
by accusing them of torture are
dismissed.
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