Associated Press - November 15, 2005

President Georgi Parvanov's office said the decision to postpone the verdict until Jan. 31 was "prolonging the drama of the five innocent nurses" and expressed the hope that "this adjournment will be the last one and that a fair resolution of the case will be achieved."

The five nurses and a Palestinian doctor have spent more than six years in Libyan prisons. They were convicted in May 2004 of intentionally infecting more than 400 children with HIV as part of an experiment to find a cure for AIDS, and sentenced to death by firing squad.

"Today the court was expected to render the only possible judgment: an acquittal," Parvanov's office said in a statement. "A careful analysis of the evidence in the case, made by European, Bulgarian and Arab jurists, shows that this evidence contains nothing to confirm the guilt of the Bulgarian defendants."

"The president is firmly convinced of the need to persevere in the efforts toward reaching an agreement with the Libyan authorities that would enable the innocently held Bulgarians to return to their home country," the statement said.

Bulgarian Foreign Ministry spokesman Dimitar Tsantchev also said his government would press for a favorable resolution of the case.

"The court panel is expected to take into account the compelling evidence of the nurses' innocence, corroborated in a categorical manner by leading world experts," Tsantchev noted.

He reiterated Bulgaria's position that the nurses are innocent and excluded any possibility of Bulgaria accepting Libyan demands for payment to secure the nurses' release.

During the trial last year, French Professor Luc Montagnier - the co-discoverer of HIV -testified that the infection had spread in the children's hospital before the Bulgarians nurses began their contracts there.

"We are deeply concerned about the protracted process which has put our compatriots on the ropes of their physical and mental stability," Tsantchev said.

The U.S. and European governments also are stepping up pressure for their release.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has said relations with Libya hinge on the fate of the Bulgarian nurses. Last month, U.S. President George W. Bush warned: "There should be no confusion in the Libyan government's mind that those nurses ought to be not only spared ... but out of prison."

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