TRIPOLI, Dec 29, 2006 (AFP) - Libya accused the West on Friday of pressuring Tripoli to quash the death sentence passed on five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor convicted of deliberately infecting children with AIDS.
This month's verdict of death by firing squad caused an international outcry, especially in Europe.
"What European countries, the European Union and NATO said showed a lack of disrespect for the judicial systems of other countries," the foreign ministry said in a statement.
It accused these parties of working "towards making an independent state, Libya, quash a verdict handed down by a competent tribunal, contrary to the laws of this country".
The ministry also said the death sentences could be revised after an appeal to the supreme court.
Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ivaylo Kalfin confirmed in Sofia that Libya had lodged a protest.
"A note we received yesterday (Thursday) indicates that the Libyan justice system is independent and evokes a certain conflict of civilisations," Kalfin told a news conference.
A Tripoli foreign ministry memorandum, reprinted on Friday by the Libyan state news agency JANA and read out on Bulgarian national radio, insisted that "the political stance expressed by the Bulgarian government, the EU countries and others is a clear deviation from certain values that is likely to trigger wars and conflicts and spark hostilities among religions and civilisations".
Kalfin has summoned Libya's charge d'affaires in Sofia Taher ben Shaban over the note.
"I declared that Bulgaria has proven its ethnic and religious tolerance" and cannot in any way "be accused of triggering ethnic and religious conflicts... Such qualifications are unacceptable," he added.
"The Bulgarian reaction is absolutely justified," Kalfin said.
The six foreign medics were all found guilty of intentionally injecting the HIV virus that can cause AIDS into more than 400 children at a hospital in the northern coastal city of Benghazi.
A Tripoli court handed down the death sentence on December 19 after a retrial of the so-called Benghazi Six, who have been in custody for the past seven years. Their first trial also resulted in a death sentence.
EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini expressed shock after the decision and called for it to be reviewed, while External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner wrote to the Libyan authorities urging them to revoke the death sentence.
On December 20 Bulgarian leaders wrote to EU heads of state, to NATO members, to the Council of Europe and to the United Nations asking them to help Sofia arrange the prisoners' release.
The EU and the scientific community had argued that hygiene at the Benghazi hospital was poor before the accused started work there, leading the children to be infected through used and unsterilized instruments.
Meanwhile the Arab League on Saturday urged all parties involved in the case not to politicise the issue.
The 22-member body called on "all parties to refrain from politicising the issue, particularly as the defendants still have an opportunity to appeal the case."
Defence lawyer Othman al-Bizanti has said he will lodge an appeal to the Libyan supreme court against the new death sentence.
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