TRIPOLI, 26 December 2005 — Libya’s supreme court yesterday ordered a retrial for five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor sentenced to death for their alleged role in infecting hundreds of Libyan children with the HIV virus.
The decision overturned death sentences that would have been carried out by firing squad and gave the nurses and their supporters new hopes that after seven years behind bars they could one day be released.
“The court has accepted the appeal of the Bulgarian nurses and ordered that a new trial will take place at the criminal court of Benghazi,” the town in northern Libya where the infections took place, Supreme Court President Ali Al-Alus said.
Libyan Justice Minister Ali Hasnawi told AFP that the new trial would be held “in one month” and that there would be “new judges.”
The hearing yesterday on the admissibility of the nurses’ appeal lasted barely an hour, during which the lawyers of the nurses and those of the victims presented their arguments. None of the accused were present in court.
“The unfair death sentences were reversed... We hope that the swiftness and the effectiveness demonstrated by the Libyan court in the past days will help to solve the case as soon as possible,” Bulgarian President Georgy Parvanov said.
“We are going to ask for their release next month at the Benghazi court. Perhaps the court will agree to our demand,” said their Libyan lawyer Othman Al-Bizanti.
