TRIPOLI, 8 June 2005 — Nine Libyan policemen and a doctor were cleared yesterday of charges of torturing five Bulgarian nurses to force them to confess to deliberately infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV. “The court has decided that all the defendants are not guilty and they were acquitted of the charges against them,” the Tripoli court judge Abdullah Aoun said.
A Libyan court last year sentenced the Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to death by firing squad for infecting 426 children in a hospital in the eastern town of Benghazi. The case has damaged Libya’s ties with the European Union, which rejects the evidence against the nurses.
The medics, who have appealed against their convictions, say they were forced to confess. They say Libya has made them scapegoats rather than admit the HIV infections were caused by poor hygiene. The medics have been in prison since 1999. The Supreme Court is set to rule on their appeal in Nov. 15.
Bulgarian officials had hoped for guilty verdicts against the policemen which could have helped overturn the nurses’ convictions. The nurses’ lawyer Othman Bizanti said they would launch an appeal against Tuesday’s verdicts.
“The verdict is disappointing of course but is not a final decision... It certainly raises questions on how efficient Libya’s court system is,” Bulgarian Deputy Foreign Minister Gergana Grancharona said.
