Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2006. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia - December 19, 2006
Lamine Ghanmi

The ruling, the latest episode in what experts say has been a deeply politicized case, could be a setback for Libya's efforts to improve ties with the West.

The children's families at the trial hailed the ruling as a welcome act of defiance of the West.

"Justice has been done. We are happy," said Subhy Abdullah, whose daughter Mona, 7, died from AIDS contracted at the hospital in the town of Benghazi where the medics worked.

"They should be executed quickly," Abdullah told Reuters after the guilty verdicts were announced by Judge Mahmoud Haouissa at the end of a seven-month retrial of the case.

In Bulgaria, Polina Dimitrova, a daughter of one of the nurses, Snezhana Dimitrova, told Reuters: "This is such a disgrace. I simply cannot believe such injustice can be done."

The six were accused of infecting 426 Libyan children, more than 50 of whom have since died, with HIV at a hospital in Benghazi in the late 1990s.

The medics had denied the charge and their defense lawyer said they planned to appeal against their latest conviction.

They were first found guilty in a 2004 trial and sentenced to death by firing squad. But the supreme court quashed the ruling last year, citing unspecified failings in the case, and ordered a retrial.

European Union Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini said he was shocked and disappointed by the ruling. Amnesty International condemned the decision.

Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin said: "The decision is deeply disappointing. The Libyan court did not take into consideration all the proof of the nurses' innocence."

Western analysts have said the case is embroiled in power politics and forecast a solution could take many more months.

Some analysts suspect Libya is likely to keep the six as bargaining chips until talks yield a financial payout from the international community to appease the children's families.

Haouissa did not say how the six should be executed but Libya's preferred method is a firing squad.

DEFIANCE OF THE WEST

Relatives of the children attending the hearing broke down in tears at the verdicts, shouting: "God is greatest".

Referring to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, relatives shouted: "Go ahead, our falcon, in defiance of the West."

The six sat calmly as the verdicts were announced.

"The verdicts will change nothing. we are innocent," the Palestinian doctor, Ashraf Alhajouj, told Reuters from behind the bars of the dock.

Luc Montagnier, a French doctor who first detected the HIV virus, has said the infections were first present in the Benghazi hospital in 1997, a year before the medics arrived.

The case has hampered oil producer Libya's rapprochement with the West, which moved up a gear when it abandoned its pursuit of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons in 2003.

Washington backs Bulgaria and the European Union in saying the medics are innocent.

Tripoli has demanded 10 million euros ($13.11 million) in compensation for each infected child's family. Bulgaria and its allies have rejected this, saying a payout would admit guilt. But they are trying to arrange a fund for treatment at European hospitals for the children.

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has reason to free the six, analysts say, because it slows Tripoli's normalization of ties with the West after decades of being an outcast.

But freeing the defendants would put the focus on alleged negligence and poor hygiene in Libyan hospitals, which Western scientists say are the real culprits in the case.

The EU's Frattini, who has sought greater cooperation with Libya on migration control, said: "My first reaction is great disappointment. I am shocked...I strongly hope that somehow the Libyan authorities will rethink this decision."

***

Additional reporting by Reuters in Sofia, Brussels

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