Death penalty in Libya HIV case
Six health workers are sentenced to death for allegedly infecting children with HIV.
Othman Bizanti, the health workers defence lawyer, said that an appeal would be filed before Libya’s supreme court within the legal time-limit of 60 days.
Bulgarian response
Bulgaria’s parliamentary speaker has urged Libya not to carry out the death sentences.
“We categorically and decisively reject the confirmation of the death sentences… [and] express our deepest conviction that such verdicts cannot and must not be carried out,” Georgy Pirinski said.
While the country’s foreign ministry urged Libya’s leadership to intervene.
“The prolonging of this court case for an eighth year now is a strong enough argument for the Libyan institutions and the leadership of the country to get involved,” a statement said.
Earlier in the year, a British scientific journal published a report saying the particular strain of the HIV virus which infected the children was introduced to the hospital before the six began working there.
“We need scientific evidence. It is a medical issue, not only a judicial one,” Francois Cantier of Lawyers Without Borders, an international legal observer, said at the court after the verdict.
The EU has called for the release of the six health workers |
The health workers pleaded not guilty and in 2002 the case was thrown out of court, but a second prosecution was started and three of the defendants withdrew their confessions, saying they had been tortured and forced to write them.
Franco Frattini, the European Union justice and security commissioner, said he was disappointed with the verdict.