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Prosecutor seeks death penalty in Libya HIV case

Posted on: Tuesday, 29 August 2006, 06:31 CDT

By Salah Sarrar

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - A Libyan prosecutor demanded the death penalty on Tuesday for five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor on trial for the second time on charges that they infected hundreds of children with the HIV virus.

"The act was cruel, criminal and inhuman. It's a human catastrophe," prosecutor Omar Abdulkhaleq told the Tripoli court, adding that 53 of the 430 children infected had subsequently died.

"We demand the death penalty for the accused."

A previous trial of the six, who have been detained since 1999, ended with their conviction on charges they intentionally infected 426 children with HIV when they worked in a hospital in Benghazi in the late 1990s.

In December 2005, the supreme court overturned the convictions, which had resulted in sentences of death by firing squad, and sent the case back to a lower court. The retrial began in May 2006.

The medics, Palestinian doctor Ashraf Alhajouj and Bulgarians Snezhana Dimitrova, Nasya Nenova, Valentina Siropolu, Christiana Valcheva and Valia Cherveniashka denied the charges in both their first and second trials and have repeatedly testified that they were tortured to make them confess.

Abdulkhaleq added that the six had also committed offences related to buying and selling alcohol, having illicit sexual relations and illegally carrying out hard currency exchange. Sex outside marriage is illegal in Libya.

The six deny those accusations.

Abdulkhaleq said without elaborating that 20 mothers of the children had become infected with the virus through breast-feeding their infected infants.

Bulgaria and its allies support the medics' torture claims and global AIDS experts say the outbreak at the Benghazi hospital where they worked began before they arrived.

Around 50 of the HIV-infected children have died, fuelling popular anger in Libya.

Tripoli has suggested the nurses could go free if Bulgaria pays compensation to the children and their families, who have demanded 4.4 billion euros ($5.5 billion). Bulgaria has refused to pay, but has joined the United States, the EU and Libya in agreeing to back the creation of an aid fund.

The retrial was adjourned to Sept 5.

Source: REUTERS

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