Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2004. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Associated Press - December 7, 2004
Deputy Foreign Minister Gergana Grancharova said her government believes the nurses are innocent and that such a payment could be seen as buying their freedom and an admission of guilt.
Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel Rahman Shalqam said on Sunday that his country might reconsider the death sentences for the five Bulgarians if compensation was paid to the families of the HIV-infected children.
"The Libyan side's readiness to reconsider the death sentences makes us happy," Grancharova told Bulgarian national radio on Monday. But "the issue about compensation as a way of buying off the freedom of the Bulgarian medics is not Bulgaria's agenda, considering the fact that compensations mean recognition of guilt in principle."
The five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were convicted in May of infecting more than 400 Libyan children with HIV, and 23 have reportedly died. The six were sentenced to death.
Western leaders have urged the Libyan government to reverse the verdicts, and human rights groups have charged that Libya concocted the story to cover up unsafe practices in its hospitals.
During the trial, Dr. Luc Montagnier, the French co-discoverer of the AIDS virus, testified that he believed the children were infected in 1997 -- more than a year before the Bulgarians were hired. He said the probable cause was poor hygiene at the Benghazi hospital.
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