BENGHAZI, Libya, 7 May 2004 — A Libyan court sentenced five Bulgarian medics and a Palestinian doctor to death by firing squad yesterday for deliberately infecting hundreds of Libyan children with the deadly HIV virus, court officials said.
Bulgaria condemned the “unfair and absurd” verdicts and called for a strong reaction from its Western partners — the European Union, NATO and the United States. The EU condemned the death sentences, saying they cast a “shadow” over improving ties with Tripoli.
The issue is a hurdle to Libya joining the economic Euro-Mediterranean partnership. Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi had promised to swiftly resolve the dispute during his ground-breaking visit to the EU headquarters last week.
The health workers, detained in early 1999, were convicted of infecting 426 Libyan children at a Benghazi hospital with blood products contaminated with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Five Bulgarian female nurses and a Palestinian doctor were sentenced to death. A Bulgarian doctor, Zdravko Georgiev, was jailed for four years, lawyers said. Court officials had originally said all six Bulgarians received death sentences.
Defense lawyers said they would appeal the sentences and had 60 days to do so.
Scores of dancing and chanting relatives of the HIV-infected children took to the streets near the court building after the verdicts were announced.
“The verdict is fair. What they did is a crime against humanity. They planted a bomb inside our children,” said Ramdane Ali Mohamed, whose little sister Hiba died of AIDS.
More than 40 of the children have died since 1999.
The medics had pleaded not guilty, insisting they were not to blame for the epidemic. Nine Libyans were tried for torturing the confessions out of the Bulgarians, but all were acquitted.
The case has gained greater attention in recent weeks as Libya emerged from international isolation after scrapping its nuclear and chemical arms program in December.
In Brussels, the European Commission said it was “deeply disappointed” by the verdict, while in Sofia Bulgarian Justice Minister Anton Stankov said he was shocked by the outcome.
“The government’s official position is that we’re not going to accept them. Such verdicts are unfair and without grounds,” he said.
Families of the medics were stunned and refused to talk to the media. But Parliament Speaker Ognyan Gerdzhikov said he was confident the death sentences would not be carried out.
“First, they can be appealed. Secondly, Libya has not executed death sentences in nine years, and I’d be very surprised if they start now. Thirdly, I expect Qaddafi to act like a humanist to win certain political credit, which he needs from world public opinion,” he told national radio.
“It a shocking verdict. My clients expected to be convicted for dereliction of duty and sentenced to prison terms not death,” defense lawyer Othmane Bizanti told Reuters. Last year Luc Montagnier, the French doctor credited with first discovering the HIV virus, said the epidemic emerged in the hospital in 1997, a year before the medics arrived, probably due to unsanitary conditions.
In Brussels, visiting Libyan Foreign Minister Mohammed Abdel-Rahman Shalgam told EU commissioner Chris Patten he was personally opposed to the death penalty, but since Libya has an independent judiciary he could not interfere, Patten’s spokesman Diego de Ojeda told reporters.
European Commission chief Romano Prodi — who only last week hosted a landmark visit by Qaddafi — said he was disappointed at the ruling and urged it to be reviewed.
“The commission is extremely preoccupied and deeply disappointed by the court’s ruling,” he said. “The commission remains in contact with the Libyan authorities and will urge them to reconsider the case to reach a satisfactory situation at the soonest.”
