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26/Jul/2006

Palestinian doctor and five Bulgarian nurses sentenced to death by a
firing squad after being found guilty for the intentional infection of
more than 400 Libyan children with AIDS.

In The Courts - Judge Denies Bail, Adjourns Trial of Medical Workers
Accused of Infecting Libyan Children With HIV After Defense Witnesses
Fail To Appear

Judge Mahmoud Haouissa, the presiding judge on the three-member
tribunal of the Tripoli Criminal Court, on Tuesday adjourned until Aug.
8 the retrial of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian physician
accused of intentionally infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV
after subpoenaed defense witnesses did not appear before the court,
Reuters South Africa reports (Sarrar, Reuters South Africa, 7/25). The
six medical workers were sentenced to death by firing squad in May 2004
for allegedly infecting 426 children through contaminated blood
products at Al Fateh Children's Hospital in Benghazi, Libya. They also
were ordered to pay a total of $1 million to the families of the
HIV-positive children. The Libyan Supreme Court in December 2005
overturned the medical workers' convictions and ordered a retrial in a
lower court. The health workers say they are innocent of the charges,
claiming that they were forced to confess and that they were tortured
by Libyan officials during interrogations. According to Bulgarian
foreign ministry spokesperson Dimitar Tsanchev, the defense has
provided the court with a list of 211 instances of psychological
torture measures taken against the health workers based on the U.N.'s
Istanbul Protocol, which declares psychological torture a crime (Kaiser
Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 7/10). Haouissa earlier this month read out the
charges that the health workers knowingly infected 393 children at the
Benghazi hospital with HIV, and the defendants all pleaded not guilty
to the charges (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 7/6).