Tudamorf
12-19-2006, 05:51 PM
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/12/19/international/i024322S45.DTL<b>Libya Sentences Bulgaria Nurses to Death</b>
(12-19) 06:20 PST TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) --
A court convicted six foreign health workers Tuesday on charges of deliberately infecting 400 children with the AIDS virus and sentenced them to death, setting off shouts of joy in Tripoli.
The verdict, which will be automatically referred to Libya's Supreme Court, drew quick condemnation from European nations, which have charged that the five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were being made scapegoats. A Western medical study, released too late for the trial, said the infections occurred before the medical workers came to Libya.
But Libyans strongly supported a conviction. A few dozen relatives of infected children — about 50 of whom have died of AIDS — waited outside the court holding poster-sized pictures of their children and placards reading "Death for the children killers" and "HIV made in Bulgaria."
After the verdict, the crowd chanted "Execution! Execution!"
"God is great!" yelled Ibrahim Mohammed al-Aurabi, the father of an infected child, as soon as the presiding judge finished reading the verdict. "Long live the Libyan judiciary!"
The nurses and doctor have been in jail since 1999 on charges that they intentionally spread the AIDS virus to more than 400 children at a hospital in the city of Benghazi during a botched experiment to find a cure for the disease.
Western nations blame the infections on unsanitary conditions at Libyan hospitals and accuse Tripoli of using the six workers as scapegoats.
Bulgaria and the EU swiftly condemned the verdict.
"Sentencing innocent people to death is an attempt to cover up the real culprits and the real reasons for the AIDS outbreak in Benghazi," Bulgaria's parliament speaker, Georgi Pirinski, said in the capital, Sofia.
On Dec. 6, too late for use in the trial, Nature magazine published an analysis of HIV and hepatitis virus samples from the children. Using changes in the genetic information of HIV over time as a "molecular clock," analysts concluded the virus was contracted before the six defendants arrived at the hospital — perhaps even three years before.
(12-19) 06:20 PST TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) --
A court convicted six foreign health workers Tuesday on charges of deliberately infecting 400 children with the AIDS virus and sentenced them to death, setting off shouts of joy in Tripoli.
The verdict, which will be automatically referred to Libya's Supreme Court, drew quick condemnation from European nations, which have charged that the five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were being made scapegoats. A Western medical study, released too late for the trial, said the infections occurred before the medical workers came to Libya.
But Libyans strongly supported a conviction. A few dozen relatives of infected children — about 50 of whom have died of AIDS — waited outside the court holding poster-sized pictures of their children and placards reading "Death for the children killers" and "HIV made in Bulgaria."
After the verdict, the crowd chanted "Execution! Execution!"
"God is great!" yelled Ibrahim Mohammed al-Aurabi, the father of an infected child, as soon as the presiding judge finished reading the verdict. "Long live the Libyan judiciary!"
The nurses and doctor have been in jail since 1999 on charges that they intentionally spread the AIDS virus to more than 400 children at a hospital in the city of Benghazi during a botched experiment to find a cure for the disease.
Western nations blame the infections on unsanitary conditions at Libyan hospitals and accuse Tripoli of using the six workers as scapegoats.
Bulgaria and the EU swiftly condemned the verdict.
"Sentencing innocent people to death is an attempt to cover up the real culprits and the real reasons for the AIDS outbreak in Benghazi," Bulgaria's parliament speaker, Georgi Pirinski, said in the capital, Sofia.
On Dec. 6, too late for use in the trial, Nature magazine published an analysis of HIV and hepatitis virus samples from the children. Using changes in the genetic information of HIV over time as a "molecular clock," analysts concluded the virus was contracted before the six defendants arrived at the hospital — perhaps even three years before.