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

[djamel32]

By Salah Sarrar
Sun Dec 25, 9:59 AM ET
TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libya's Supreme Court on Sunday scrapped death sentences against five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor and ordered a retrial of the cases which have harmed Tripoli's efforts to build ties with the West.
The five nurses and the doctor, jailed since 1999 and convicted of infecting children with the HIV virus, will leave the death rows of their prisons to wait for retrial, an official said.
They had been sentenced to death by firing squad after a conviction which was condemned internationally and had undermined Libya's attempts to reverse three decades of treatment as a rogue state by the West.
"The five nurses and the Palestinian doctor will not be considered as prisoners condemned to death after today's ruling. They will become only defendants waiting for retrial," a court official, who did not want to be named, told Reuters.

The Supreme Court accepted appeals against a lower court ruling both on substance and procedure, their lawyers said. Its decision followed an agreement last week between Libya and Bulgaria to set up a fund to help families of the sick children.

The six medical workers had been convicted of infecting 426 Libyan children with the HIV virus in the Mediterranean port city of Benghazi. More than 50 of the children have died.

They said they were innocent and their confessions extracted under torture. AIDS experts have said the outbreak started before the nurses arrived and was probably caused by poor hygiene.

"The court has accepted the appeals by the nurses and the doctor and sends the cases back to the lower court for retrial," Ali Alouss, the Supreme Court presiding judge, told an appeals hearing.

Lawyers told Reuters that meant the death sentences were canceled and the lower court in Benghazi which had earlier issued the sentences would retry the cases.

"The High Council of the Judiciary Authorities, the top judiciary authority, will decide when Benghazi's lower court will retry the cases," the court official added.

He said the High Council procedure usually took two months before the lower court started a retrial.

A Bulgarian Foreign Ministry spokesman said Sofia hoped the retrial and the repeal of the death sentences were "a recognition of the serious procedural breaches in the trial."

But the relatives of the nurses reacted anxiously.

"I do not know what that ruling means. How can I rejoice? What's the difference -- death sentences, lifetime prison terms or other verdicts, when for seven years innocent people are in jail," said Tsvetanka Siropoulu, the sister-in-law of nurse Valentina Siropoulu.

RETRIAL DATE AFTER AGREEMENT

Families of the sick children gathered on a street near the court were angry and bitter.

"Today's ruling delays further the final verdict on the cases and extends the suffering of the families. That verdict hurts their feelings as they see their children dying slowly," said Mohamed Salah, a father whose daughter is sick with HIV.

The Association of the Families of the HIV Infected Children's chairman Ramdane Fitouri told Reuters the lower court could reconfirm the death sentences in the retrial.

"There is no doubt this prolongs our suffering but today's ruling does not mean the death sentences could not be confirmed again by the lower court. The lower court has the authority to issue again the death sentences," he told Reuters.

But a Tripoli-based senior Western diplomat said he expected the nurses to return home early next year, based on a deal between the two governments.

He said the Libyan government would convince the families to pardon the nurses and the doctor based on the deal and the court would sentence them to life in jail.

"The Libyan government will then announce it has an agreement with Bulgaria to extradite prisoners to spend the prison terms at home and the nurses will fly home early next year," he added.

"What is certain to me is that the medical workers are going to eventually be released," said George Joffe, a North Africa expert at Britain's Cambridge University. "But that will be a result of a political deal, " Joffe told Reuters.

An official of the Gaddafi Charity foundation, chaired by the influential son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Saif al-Islam, has said that the Libyan and Bulgarian sides would meet on Wednesday to work out the financial details for the families of the children.

Tripoli had suggested the verdicts could be quashed if money were provided to cover financial compensation for the families of the victims and medical treatment for the children.

Libya had been dismissed as a pariah state by the west almost as soon as Gaddafi took power in 1969 promising to fight U.S. imperialism in the Middle East.

But Tripoli began turning around its relationship with the European Union and the United States in recent years, promising in 2003 to abandon attempts to acquire nuclear weapons and join the U.S. war on terror.

U.S. State Department spokesman Justin Higgins called the Supreme Court decision positive. "The international community is working with Libya to find an overall solution. As we have made clear before we believe a way should be found to allow the medics to return to Bulgaria and Palestine," he said.

PS:yahaoudji hadhi daoula!!!!!!!!!

[Al-khiyal]

Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were sentenced to death by a Libyan court yesterday for deliberately infecting 426 children with the HIV virus. The verdict provoked a chorus of Western condemnation.

The ruling, in a deeply politicised case, could set back Libya's hopes of better ties with the West, meaning that Col Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, is likely to seek a deal to save the six from execution, according to analysts.

Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, joined Ivailo Kalfin, the Bulgarian foreign minister, in denouncing the death sentences. She said the medics should "be allowed to go home at the earliest possible date".

Franco Frattini, the European Union's justice and security commissioner, said: "My first reaction is great disappointment. I cannot imagine that the death sentences will be carried out."

Bulgaria reiterated its belief that the children contracted the virus in the late 1990s from infected blood and instruments, a view supported by Western and Middle Eastern scientists. The international community as well as human rights groups have viewed the six as scapegoats for failings in Libya's health system.

The children's relatives at a packed Tripoli courtroom broke down in tears and hailed the ruling. "Justice has been done. We are happy," said Subhy Abdullah, whose daughter Mona, seven, died from Aids contracted at the hospital in Benghazi. "They should be executed quickly."

An eight-year-old girl yesterday reportedly became the 53rd child to die of the disease.

Some of the defendants, who have been in custody for seven years, burst into tears on hearing the verdict. Others sat silently, according to witnesses.

Zorka Anachkova, the mother of the convicted nurse Christiana Valcheva, said: "We are all heart-broken. Can someone tell me what evil Christiana has ever done?"

Another nurse, Snezhana Dimitrova, has suffered a nervous breakdown. Others have claimed they were beaten or tortured by their Libyan guards.

The six were arrested soon after arriving to work in Libya. Others were charged but then freed, while Libyan guards accused of torturing the accused were acquitted.

The six were first found guilty in 2004. But the Supreme Court quashed the ruling last year, citing unspecified failings in the case, and ordered a retrial.

Lawyers for the six said that they would appeal to the Supreme Court.

The case may well end up at the Supreme Justice Council, led by the justice minister Ali Omar Hassnaoui. He said yesterday: "Whatever the verdict of the Supreme Court, the defendant has a chance before the high council."

Tripoli has demanded £6.5 million for each infected child's family. The EU, supported by Bulgaria, has offered a £1.3 million fund for treatment at European hospitals for the children, a hospital in Benghazi and compensation to the families. Some children have been treated in Europe already.

Saad Djebbar, a London-based Algerian lawyer and Libya expert, predicted the six would win reduced sentences taking into account the seven years they have spent in jail.

Luc Montagnier, the French doctor who was a co-discoverer of HIV, testified in the first trial that the virus was active in the hospital before the nurses arrived.

Libya is condemned over death sentences

[Al-khiyal]

Anger as Libyan retrial hands death sentence to medics

[Al-khiyal]

Travesty in Tripoli

[Al-khiyal]

Six foreigners condemned to die for infecting 426 Libyan children in a Benghazi hospital with HIV, have every chance of escaping the firing squad, analysts say.

A report in The Mercury says, a government-led body will have the final say on the fate of the Palestinian doctor and five Bulgarian nurses, and analysts say it will be able to commute the sentences. ‘The Libyans are telling the world, “Don't worry, the case is still open”,’ a European ambassador said.

Independent scientists say the six are scapegoats for failings in the Libyan health system. They plan to appeal to the Supreme Court. Libya's Justice and Foreign Ministers explained that even if that failed, the High Judicial Council, chaired by the Justice Minister, could act at a more senior level than the Supreme Court and overturn its decision. Foreign Minister Abdel-Rahman Shalgam said the six were assured of ‘extraordinary guarantees’. Saad Djebbar, a London-based Algerian lawyer and expert on Libya, said he was confident they would eventually win reduced sentences that took into account their seven years in detention. ‘The Libyans are trying to find a way not to discredit their judicial system,’ he said.

Chances still good for condemned foreigners in Libya

[Al-khiyal]

SOFIA - Two Libyan police officers accused of having tortured five Bulgarian nurses sentenced to death in a Libyan AIDS case, have filed suits against the nurses, claiming they were "humiliated" by the accusations, Bulgarian daily 24 Hours reported Friday.

"We have filed a suit because we sustained a lot of damages and suffering following the nurses' unjust accusations. We claim five million dinars (three million euros) in damages from each of the nurses," Colonel Jumaa al Mashri told the newspaper's correspondent in Tripoli.

Mashri and another officer, Abdel Majid Shol, were among 10 Libyan police officers sued by the nurses for having tortured them to obtain confessions.

All were acquitted by a Tripoli court in June 2005.

Mashri said he would donate the money to treat over 400 children infected by AIDS-tainted blood at a hospital in Benghazi, in an epidemic blamed on the five nurses and a Palestinian doctor.

"I do not want anything for myself. We have won. We have uncovered the plot against Libya and the children," Mashri said, adding that the trial will start on January 9 in Tripoli.

The six foreign medics were condemned to death by firing squad for the second time Tuesday for "knowingly" infecting the children.

The nurses testified in court that they had been beaten and electrocuted in order to confess. One nurse even attempted suicide, saying later she could no longer stand the torture.

Libyan officers to sue Bulgarian nurses

[Al-khiyal]

UNITED NATIONS – Secretary-General Kofi Annan Friday offered U.N. help in finding a “humane solution” in the case of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor, sentence to death in Libya for infecting more than 400 children with the AIDS virus.

“I am deeply concerned by confirmation of a guilty verdict and a death sentence and, therefore, appeal to the Libyan and the international community to continue working together in a spirit of reconciliation,” Annan said in a statement measured in its criticism.

A Libyan court Tuesday handed down the sentence in the eight-year old case. Bulgaria intends to ask the nation's leader, Muammar Gaddafi, to intervene on grounds that the judicial system was biased and that the medics were innocent.

Annan said he had long been following the case and was encouraged by offers from around the world to provide treatment to the children.

“Once again, I offer the support of the United Nations in all efforts to address the needs of the infected children and to find a humane solution for the fate of the medics,” Annan said, a week before he leaves office.

The nurses arrived in February 1998 to take up jobs at a children's hospital in Benghazi, Libya's second largest city. By August, children at the hospital tested positive for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

The nurses said they were tortured into confessing they infected the blood supply and foreign AIDS experts say the disease was present before the medics arrived and probably spread by contaminated needles.

U.N.'s Annan concerned at Libya verdict in AIDS case