TRIPOLI, Oct 31, 2006 (AFP) - The retrial of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor accused of infecting hundreds of Libyan children with the HIV virus heard renewed accusations of torture Tuesday, before the case was adjourned to November 4.
Proceedings, which resumed for only a day after a five-week break, were dominated by submissions by main defence lawyer Osman al-Bizanti, whose illness on September 21 caused the trial to be adjourned.
The nurses and doctor, who worked at a hospital in Benghazi, allegedly infected 426 children with HIV, of whom 52 have since died of AIDS.
An initial trial in the eastern city of Benghazi sentenced the defendants to death by firing squad in May 2004, straining ties between Tripoli and Sofia.
Libya's supreme court ordered a retrial following an appeal in December 2005.
On Tuesday, Bizanti repeated his clients' allegation that they had confessed under torture, adding that one of the nurses had tried to commit suicide because of the alleged torture.
He added that when he first visited the accused in prison they had their legs in chains and eyes covered.
During police interrogations, two of the nurses allegedly confessed, but later testified in court that they had done so under torture. All six of the accused now assert their innocence.
The Palestinian's lawyer Tuhami al-Tumi said the accused had been "subjected to physical and psychological torture".
He also described problems with health conditions at Benghazi hospital, saying the state of Libya's hospitals in general led many to seek care abroad.
Last week, an international group of physicians and scientists urged Libya to free the medics, citing lack of proof.
"Convicting a small group of individuals of such an appalling crime as the deliberate infection of 400 innocent children requires a very high degree of proof," the group of US, Canadian and European scientists wrote in a letter published in the October 25 issue of the US journal Science.
"Yet the Libyan court chose to exclude expert testimony from independent scientists and to prevent access to crucial pieces of evidence to test for HIV contamination, while relying instead on 'confessions' extracted under torture and making threats of execution for any noncooperation by the accused," they wrote.
The signatories included Robert Gallo, a US scientist who co-discovered two decades ago that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) causes AIDS.
In December, Britain, Bulgaria, the European Union and the United States created an international fund to help Libya fight AIDS, renovate the Benghazi hospital and compensate victims or their families.
Five months ago, the court rejected a defence motion for a new international probe into the reasons for the spread of AIDS in Libya, but agreed to re-examine a report drawn up by Libyan experts.
A 2003 inquiry by an international specialist at the request of Libyan authorities concluded that the hospital infections were the result of poor hygiene.
A second study by three Libyan experts found that "given the significant number of infected patients, they were deliberately infected with the virus."
The medics' case has soured relations between Tripoli and the West since former pariah state Libya came back into the international fold after abandoning its programme to develop weapons of mass destruction in 2003.
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