SOFIA, Dec 18 (AFP) - Bulgarian Foreign Minister Soloman Passi is to visit Libya Wednesday to discuss the trial of six Bulgarians facing death for allegedly deliberately infecting Libyan children with the HIV virus.
Passi is to meet his Libyan counterpart Abdel Rahmane Chalgham and Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi's son Seif Al-Islam, who is president of a charity foundation named after his family in Tripoli, BTA news agency reported.
Six Bulgarians -- a doctor and five nurses -- are accused along with a Palestinian doctor of deliberately injecting 393 children in their care with blood products infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, in a hospital in the northern Libyan city of Benghazi.
Twenty-three children are reported to have died already.
The accused are charged with "premeditated murder with the aim of undermining Libyan security". All have pleaded not guilty.
During the trial's final hearing in June, the prosecutor called for the defendants to face the death penalty. The verdict is expected on December 22.
The Khadafi foundation is an observer in the process and Seif Al-Islam pressed for the release of the accused in October.
011218
AF0112B1
Copyright © AFP or Agence France-Presse, 2001 - All Rights Reserved. AFP articles contained on the AEGiS web site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without AFP's prior written permission. You may make one copy of each article for your personal, non-commercial use only; more copies would require AFP's prior written permission.. http://www.afp.com/
ÆGiS is made possible through unrestricted grants from Boehringer Ingelheim, the National Library of Medicine, and donations from users like you. Always watch for outdated information. This article first appeared in 2001. This material is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.
©1990, 2001 - ÆGiS. ÆGiS presents published material, reprinted with permission and neither endorses nor opposes any material. All materials appearing on ÆGIS are protected by copyright as a collective work or compilation under U.S. copyright and other laws and are the property of ÆGIS and the Sisters of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, or the party credited as the provider of the content.