TRIPOLI, 9 April 2004 — Libya hit back at US condemnation of death sentences pronounced by a Libyan court on five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor for the spread of AIDS in a children’s hospital.
“The United States has no right to speak of human rights,” government spokesman Hassuna Shaush told a press conference here late Friday.
Referring to the abuse of prisoners in a US-run jail in Iraq, Shaush said, “Before voicing an opinion on the Benghazi verdict, the United States would have done better to apologize for Abu Ghraib.
“The United States means that the death of more than 400 Libyan children is acceptable but the punishment of the guilty is unacceptable,” he added.
“We did not want to politicize this matter, but the American reactions oblige us to reply.”
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Thursday, hours after the sentences were passed: “We find the verdict that was pronounced in the court to be unacceptable.”
He said the legal and human rights of the accused had been violated numerous times since the allegations were first made five years ago and vowed to continue to raise the matter with Libyan officials.
“We recognize the great human tragedy that occurred in Benghazi and our deepest sympathy is extended to the families of the four hundred children who were infected with the HIV/AIDS virus,” he told reporters.
But he added that the accused, who have a right to appeal the verdicts, should be released and allowed to return home.
A Bulgarian doctor was also jailed for four years by the same court in a separate case.
Boucher said the US diplomats attached to the newly opened US interests section in Tripoli had attended the trial and would be following up on the matter with Libyan officials.
“We urge the government of Libya to take steps to resolve this case quickly,” he said.
The lawyers for the defendants have said their clients are being used as scapegoats for inadequate sterilization of instruments at the pediatric hospital in Benghazi before the Bulgarians and the Palestinian arrived in 1998.
All pleaded innocent to the charges when the trial opened four years ago and the verdicts were postponed several times.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Wednesday after meeting with visiting Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Passy that Washington had been pressing and would continue to call on Libya to release the seven health workers.
Neither Boucher nor Powell could say whether the court verdict would affect the dramatic rapprochement between the United States and Libya which has come about since Tripoli renounced weapons of mass destruction in December. The verdicts were also condemned by Bulgaria and the European Union.
