Libyan court scraps nurses' HIV death sentences: Reinstated after retrial

[Al-khiyal]

DUBAI, August 9, 2007 (Reuters) - Foreign medics freed from a Libyan jail were tortured into confessing they deliberately infected hundreds of Libyan children with HIV, a son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said in remarks broadcast on Thursday.

The five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were freed on July 24 after a deal between Tripoli and the European Union, having spent eight years in jail.

The lawyer of the Palestinian doctor told Reuters on Tuesday the doctor was tortured into confessing he deliberately infected the children and that he planned to a complain to a U.N. human rights panel.

Gaddafi's son confirmed the allegation of torture in an interview with Qatar-based Al Jazeera television.

"There was torture with electricity...there was a threat to attack their families," Saif al-Islam said.

Some of the children were infected with the virus that causes AIDS before the medics arrived in Libya and one case was reported after their arrest, he said.

"There is negligence, there is a disaster that took place, there is a tragedy, but it was not deliberate."

A Libyan court acquitted nine Libyan policemen and a doctor of torturing the medics.

International scientists say they have shown the HIV subtype began infecting the children before the foreign medics arrived.

The medics, who were sentenced to death on two occasions, have always maintained their innocence and said they confessed under torture. Bulgaria and other EU governments had also said the medics were innocent and called for their release.

Western scientists have said Libya's inefficient health-care system was the real culprit for the HIV infection.

Libya commuted death sentences against the six to life imprisonment following the payment of a $460 million financial settlement - $1 million to each HIV victim's family. That opened the way for the medics' release under Libyan law.

Medics tortured into HIV confession - Gaddafi's son

[Al-khiyal]

September 4, 2007 -- Bulgarian Deputy Foreign Minister Feim Chaushev and Chairperson of the Benghazi International Fund Mark Pierini signed an agreement in Sofia on Monday (September 3rd) under which Bulgaria writes off Libya's $56.6m communist-era debt and transfers it to a fund established earlier in 2007 to pay for the treatment of nearly 400 Libyan children infected with HIV in a Benghazi hospital in 1998. Libya stopped repaying the $20m debt to Bulgaria in 1984 and until recently refused to recognize the accumulated $30.6m in interest.

The 337 million-euro fund was a major condition set by Libya in order to release the five Bulgarian nurses and Palestinian doctor blamed for the HIV epidemic, Perini said. The Bulgarian Minister said transferring Libya's debt to Bulgaria and into the Benghazi Fund is a humanitarian and social act that stems from Bulgaria's sympathy with the families of the infected children and by no way admits that the medics are guilty.

Bulgaria transfers $56.6 million debt to fund for Libya’s HIV victims

[Al-khiyal]

Palestinian doctor files human rights suit against Libya

January 10, 2008 -- Ashraf al-Hazouz, the Palestinian doctor who along with five Bulgarian nurses was held for eight years and sentenced to death in Libya after being accused of infecting children in a Benghazi hospital with HIV, filed a complaint against Libya with the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva on Tuesday (January 8th). Al-Hazouz's Dutch lawyer Liesbeth Zegveld said on Wednesday that the doctor is accusing Libyan authorities of torture, degrading treatment and conducting an unfair trial. Zegveld added that the move aims to prompt Libya to take moral responsibility for the wrong-doing and possible secure financial compensation for her client. The rulings of the UN committee are not binding.

[Al-khiyal]