Libyan court to rule on Bulgarian nurses in May

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http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L2961188.htm

TRIPOLI, March 29 (Reuters) - Libya's supreme court will rule in May on an appeal by five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor who face the death penalty for infecting hundreds of children with HIV, officials said on Tuesday.

The medics, sentenced to death by firing squad last year for deliberately infecting more than 400 children at a Benghazi hospital, insist they are innocent and that the only evidence against them were confessions extracted under torture.

"After a hearing today, the High Court postponed its final decision to May 31 when it will rule whether to uphold the death penalty on the six defendants or order another trial," a court official said in Tripoli.

At least 40 of the 426 infected children have died of AIDS, increasing widespread outrage in Libya over the case.

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http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/NL23684292.htm

Gaddafi says he told Westerners he wouldn't free nurses

ALGIERS, March 23 (Reuters) - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on Wednesday rejected calls from the West for the release of Bulgarian nurses sentenced to death for injecting children with the HIV virus.

"Everyone from the West comes to Libya and says to me release the Bulgarian nurses. This means that our children died and this was not considered as important," Gaddafi said.

"By God ... I told them I wouldn't," he told an Arab League summit in Algiers, attended by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were sentenced to death last year after being found guilty of deliberately infecting hundreds of Libyan children with the deadly HIV virus that causes AIDS.

The verdicts were based on confessions that the nurses, who remain jailed, say were extracted under torture.

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The US government thinks torture is a fine way to extract confessions. Our government is now in good company.