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 9, 2004
Seif el-Islam Gadhafi also said the Appeal Court might change the death sentence to a prison sentence. The five nurses were convicted in a trial whose proceedings were criticized by international observers.
"I rule out the possibility of executing the Bulgarian defendants and capital punishment, in general, will be reconsidered so that it will be applied only on limited narrow cases," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
He said amendments to pertinent laws are being studied and will be soon discussed and approved by judicial authorities.
"The accused Bulgarians have already appealed the death sentence, which might be reduced to a lighter sentence ... and then the extradition agreement with Bulgaria could be started," he said.
Sunday, Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel Rahman Shalqam suggested for the first time that the death sentence could be reconsidered if the families of the victims were compensated and those still alive be treated.
Gadhafi also said that compensation should be paid to the victims' families and a health center should be established in Libya to treat the children who are still carrying the HIV virus. Bulgaria has rejected the compensation idea, saying that would mean accepting the guilt.
Gadhafi's son holds no official position, but he often acts as a spokesman for his father. He runs the Gadhafi International Association for Charitable Organizations, which has mediated in kidnapping cases and other international disputes involving Libya. The association is seen as trying to soften Libya's image from an alleged rogue state accused of sponsoring terrorism to a country that is part of the international mainstream.
A court in Benghazi in eastern Libya convicted the five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor of intentionally infecting more than 400 Libyan children with HIV-contaminated blood as part of an experiment to find a cure for AIDS. Twenty-three infected children have reportedly died.
During the trial, Dr. Luc Montagnier, the French co-discoverer of the AIDS virus, testified that he estimated the children to have been infected in 1997 -more than a year before the Bulgarians were hired. He said the probable cause was poor hygiene at the Benghazi hospital.
Some human rights groups have accused Libya of concocting the experiment story to cover up unsafe practices in its hospitals and clinics. They, and European governments, have said confessions used in the trial were extracted by torture.
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