AP Features, April 20th, 2007
The EU parliament's president called for the release of five Bulgarian medics sentenced to death in Libya after being convicted of deliberately infecting 400 children with HIV.
Hans-Gert Poettering said Libya should revoke the death sentence and free the nurses, allowing them to reunite with their families in Bulgaria.
"I met with relatives of the nurses...and their pain is in my heart," Poettering said in an address to Bulgarian lawmakers Friday.
The nurses and a Palestinian doctor have been in Libyan custody since 1999, when they were accused of deliberately infecting the children with HIV at a hospital in Benghazi.
They were sentenced to death twice _ in 2004 and again in 2006, following a court appeal. Libyan court officials said the nurses were given the death sentences after allegedly confessing to the crimes, but some of the nurses have since said they confessed under beatings and torture. They say they are innocent of infecting the children with HIV.
Poettering expressed concern about the fate of the Libyan children as well. He said that the responsibility for the infection needs to be addressed, but added that "transferring this responsibility to the Bulgarian medics does not correspond to reality."
Bulgaria has mobilized all its forces to boost international support for the nurses' cause.
The European Union and the United States have repeatedly urged Libyan authorities to release the nurses.
Several European studies have suggested that the HIV/AIDS virus was present at the Benghazi hospital before the nurses began working there.
A ruling on the nurses' second appeal to Libya's Supreme Court is expected by mid-May.
