EU urges Libya to annul death sentence for foreign medics

The European Union today urged Libya to free the Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor accused of infecting Libyan children with HIV after a Libyan court decided to reimpose their death sentences.

“It is my strong hope that the concerned Libyan authorities will take the necessary measures to review and annul the death sentence, and open the way to an early resolution of the case on a humanitarian basis,” EU External Affairs Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said in a letter to the Libyan foreign ministry.

The six have been in jail since 1999 on charges that they intentionally spread the HIV virus to more than 400 children at a hospital in the city of Benghazi during a botched experiment to find a cure for Aids.

Fifty of the children died.

A court in Tripoli last week handed down death sentences for the defendants, despite scientific evidence that the youngsters had the HIV virus before the medical workers arrived in Libya.

Bulgaria and European officials have blamed the infections on unhygienic practices at the hospital, and accuse Libya of making the accused scapegoats to cover up poor conditions.