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| Africa North |
| Libya: Medics On Death Row Want Bulgarian Lawyer |
| 2007-02-28 |
| Tripoli, 28 Feb. (AKI) - Five Bulgarian nurses sentenced to death with a Palestinian doctor by a court in Tripoli on charges that they deliberately infected 426 children with the HIV virus have asked for a Bulgarian lawyer to represent them in a new trial, the Sofia news agency reported on Wednesday. They now face new charges of slandering local police officers whom they claim raped and tortured them into giving false confessions in the HIV case. The nurses have now reportedly demanded that a lawyer from their own country defend them in the new case together with Libyan attorney Osman Bizanti, who is representing them in the appeals trial, as they don't think it fair to have five people represented by the same attorney, the Bulgarian news agency said. The six medics have lodged an appeal against the death sentence with the country's highest appeals court in a final attempt to escape capital punishment. The supreme court could reportedly rule in mid-May. The medics, who have been jailed in Libya since 1999, have long claimed they are innocent and are being used as scapegoats for unsanitary conditions in the Benghazi hospital where they worked and where they say the HIV virus already existed before they arrived in 1998. Of the infected children, 52 have died. A court on 19 December last year found the six defendants guilty of deliberately infecting the Libyan children and sentenced them to death. The medics had been sentenced to death by firing squad in a previous trial in 2004, but Libya's supreme court ordered a retrial in December 2005. An international group of physicians and scientists has urged Libya to free the medics, saying that accusations against them were unfounded. An independent report by leading experts including Luc Montagnier, who co-discovered the HIV virus, supported the medics' claim that the HIV infections started in the Benghazi hospital before their arrival and were caused by poor hygiene standards. Yeah, but so they're innocent, big deal, but how else is libya gonna exonerate itself from that Aids epidemic AND ransom the kufrs? |
| Posted by:anonymous5089 |
| #2 But they need a Bulgarian KGB team. |
| Posted by: ed 2007-02-28 17:24 |
| #1 I thought that about a month ago Gadahfi's son gave them amnesty; I read that in the MSM somewhere. |
| Posted by: USN, Ret. 2007-02-28 15:41 |