Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2005. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia - November 2, 2005
Salah Sarrar

"There is no legislation or draft legislation to scrap the death penalty and there is no plan to do that any time soon," a senior government official told Reuters on Wednesday.

He was reacting to a report by the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat which quoted Arab diplomatic sources as saying Tripoli was likely to annul capital punishment soon as part of a deal to allow the nurses to be released.

The death sentences have hindered Libya's drive to end decades of diplomatic isolation and improve ties with the West.

Asharq al-Awsat added that the nurses, and a Palestinian doctor also convicted in the case, would be asked to pay compensation to a special fund and a charitable organisation run by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam.

Its sources said the deal was devised by the United States and the European Union, which have condemned the sentences.

Libya's supreme court is due to rule on Nov. 15 on an appeal by the medical team, convicted last year of deliberately infecting more than 400 children at a hospital in Benghazi. At least 40 have died of AIDS, causing outrage in Libya.

Libya has urged Bulgaria to compensate the families of the infected children but Sofia has refused, saying the nurses are innocent and any payments would amount to an admission of guilt.

Libyan officials say Gaddafi recently asked legal experts to mull how penal law could be revised as part of social and economic reforms.

But the senior government official told Reuters: "The debate in Libya about the death penalty and other legal issues has nothing to do with the nurses and their sentences."

He declined to speculate on the possibility of the nurses being freed under any future political compromise. The European Commission and Bulgaria's foreign ministry refused to comment on the Asharq al-Awsat report, but reiterated their position that the nurses should be freed.

"I continue to expect the Libyan court, if it is fair enough, to take into account all evidence that shows the Bulgarian nurses are innocent," Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin told journalists.

Bulgaria, the European Union and the United States are trying to organise humanitarian aid, including medical equipment, drugs and treatment, for the infected children as part of their effort to resolve the dispute.

Last month U.S. President George W. Bush called for the nurses to be freed. His remarks sparked protests in Tripoli.

Saad Djebbar, a London-based lawyer previously involved in negotiations that resolved the Lockerbie dispute between Britain and Libya, discounted the Asharq al-Awsat report.

But he said talks were under way to try to resolve the case of the Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor "without apportioning blame or denigrating the Libyan judiciary".

Djebbar told Reuters any deal was likely to include compensation for the families of victims and provision for the care of the surviving infected children, perhaps to be paid by the European Union, rather than Bulgaria.

"I think goodwill exists among all parties. The Libyans want this to be resolved," he said. "There is a golden opportunity for this to be resolved while the British, with their experience of the Lockerbie negotiations, are presiding over the EU."

Djebbar said if the children's families accepted compensation, the court could commute the death sentences.

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(Additional reporting by Tsvetelia Ilieva in Sofia, Jeff Mason in Brussels and Alistair Lyon in London)

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