New Trial of Nurses, Doctor Starts in Libya
TRIPOLI, Libya — A new trial for five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor accused of infecting more than 400 Libyan children with HIV began Thursday with a judge refusing bail.
The nurses and doctor have been in jail since 1999 on charges that they spread the virus that causes AIDS to children at a hospital in Benghazi during a botched experiment to find a cure for the disease. Western nations blame the infections on poor hygiene at Libyan hospitals and accuse Tripoli of concocting the charges as a coverup.
Amnesty International has said the women reported being tortured with electric shocks and beaten until they confessed. Two nurses said they had been raped.
The medical workers were sentenced to death in 2004. But Libya came under strong international pressure, and the Supreme Court threw out the sentences in December 2005, ordering a retrial.
The chief judge said at the time that prosecutors had agreed with defense lawyers that there were “irregularities” in the arrest and interrogation of the medical workers, suggesting he believed the defense’s contention the workers were tortured to extract confessions.
Defense lawyers argued Thursday that the nurses had spent enough time in prison.
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