SOFIA, Dec 6 (AFP) - The Bulgarian government on Monday rejected a proposal by Tripoli that it pay compensation to secure the release of five Bulgarian nurses sentenced to death in Libya.
"There is no question of paying indemnities to buy the freedom of our nurses because this would amount to acknowledging their guilt, which is not possible. We are convinced that they are innocent," Deputy Foreign Minister Guergana Grantcharova told national radio.
A lawyer for one of the nurses and the mother of another said Monday that they agreed with the government's position.
The five nurses and a Palestinian doctor were condemned to death in May by a Libyan tribunal which found that they had infected hundreds of children in a hospital in Benghazi in northern Libya with the HIV virus.
Libyan Foreign Minister Abdelraham Shalgham said Sunday in Libya that the verdict could be overturned if Bulgaria paid compensation to the families of the infected children, of whom 46 have died so far.
"If the families of the victims are compensated and the sick treated in cooperation with the European Union, then the case of the Bulgarian nurses could be re-examined," he said.
The president of the health committee in the Bulgarian parliament, Atanas Chterev, dismissed the Libyan proposal as "blackmail."
"The whole world knows that the trial was politically rigged. Only the totalitarian regime of Moamer Kadhafi can continue to lie like this in order to escape its responsibilities," he added.
A lawyer for one of the nurses, Hari Haralampiev, said the Libyan proposal was "a political move".
"To accept this would be to recognise the guilt of the condemned. An impartial court has to acquit them," he said.
The mother of one of the nurses, Zorka Anatchkova, also rejected Tripoli's proposal.
"Kadhafi and Shalgham know perfectly well that the Bulgarians are innocent," she said at a demonstration in support of the five held in the the eastern city of Varna on Monday.
Those gathered to show solidarity released 50 white doves in front of the local church.
Justice Minister Anton Stankov however said the government should look for a compromise solution. "In all languages, compromise means concessions made by each party," he said.
And French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier, who is visiting Sofia, said the Libyan proposal "indicates an atmosphere of positive dialogue that we are encouraging between the EU and Libya."
Deputy Minister Grantcharova said Bulgaria was prepared to hold talks with the Libyan authorities and to take into account the plight of the infected children, but insisted Tripoli accept "the total absence of proof" against the nurses.
"Such a dialogue must be coordinated by the European Union," she added.
The Libyan tribunal found that the foreign medical workers had injected the children with HIV-tainted blood.
But French Professor Luc Montagnier, co-discoverer of HIV, and Italian Professor Vittorio Colizzi, testified at the trial that the epidemic was the result of poor hygiene at the hospital and was under way before the nurses arrived.
All six defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges and two of the nurses and the doctor said during the trial that they were tortured into making confessions.
They are appealing against their sentences and the European Union has called for the case to be resolved as soon as possible.
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