TRIPOLI, May 27, 2007 (AFP) - A Libyan court acquitted five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian medic on Sunday of charges of slandering policemen by protesting that their confessions had been extracted under torture.
The ruling came just hours after an organisation headed by a son of Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi said the whole saga may soon be resolved.
At a hearing that lasted less than a minute during which the six defendants were not present, judge Salem al-Homari announced they had been found not guilty and ordered the plaintiffs to pay the legal costs.
Nurses' lawyer Othman al-Bizanti welcomed the ruling and told AFP the charges had been "unfounded", but one of the two plaintiffs, Jomaa al-Mishri, said it was taken under political pressure and that he would appeal.
The five nurses -- Kristiana Valcheva, Nassia Nenova, Valia Cherveniachka, Valentina Siropoulo and Snejana Dimitrova -- and doctor Ashraf Ahmed Juma had faced a maximum penalty of three years in prison.
The six have already been in custody for eight years and were condemned to death in May 2004 on charges of deliberately injecting more than 400 Libyan children with HIV, which can cause AIDS, at a hospital in the city of Benghazi.
The verdict was upheld last December but a final appeal, originally set for earlier this month, is due to open soon.
Bulgaria hailed Sunday's acquittal but called on Libya to quickly release the medics.
"We are satisfied with the court's decision. However, the trial that has just been concluded has not helped in solving the main case," foreign ministry spokesman Dimitar Tsanchev told AFP in Sofia.
But the husband of one of the nurses, Bulgarian doctor Zdravko Georgiev, said from Tripoli: "If they did not slander, they therefore told the truth" and the death sentences would be overturned.
Georgiev was detained with the nurses until 2004 and then acquitted, but he is still not allowed to leave Libya.
The six accused said that their "confessions" in the HIV trial were forced from them under torture, including beatings, electric shocks and being threatened with dogs.
The court ruling came shortly after the Kadhafi Foundation, headed by Saif al-Islam, announced in a statement that the saga may soon be resolved with the help of the EU.
"Indications of an impending solution to this crisis have appeared after negotiations in Brussels on May 10 between representatives of the families of Libyan children stricken with AIDS and the European Union," it said.
"Representatives of the families have welcomed with satisfaction the results of these negotiations, and rays of hope for a rapid resolution of this crisis have appeared," foundation official Saleh Abdessalam said in the statement.
He said the Kadhafi Foundation "is trying to bring together the points of view of the Libyan families' representatives and those of the international community."
Libyan sources told AFP recently that the discreet negotiations could enable the condemned medics to avoid the death penalty.
The families of the infected children have said they will meet British Prime Minister Tony Blair next week during a visit by him to Libya as part of an African farewell tour before he leaves office on June 27.
Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin said this month the European Union had so far contributed between two million and 2.5 million euros (2.7 million to 3.3 million dollars) to an international fund set up in 2005.
Kalfin said that the money was to help the treatment of children afflicted with AIDS and to train Libyan doctors. "This is not money given as compensation," he said.
The medics, largely viewed as scapegoats by the international community, maintain their innocence based on testimony by foreign health experts who said the AIDS epidemic in Libya's second city was sparked by poor hygiene.
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