Brussels/Tripoli/Sofia, 29/05/2007 (Agence Europe) - A step has just been taken towards settling the cases of the Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor imprisoned in Libya after being accused of injecting children at the hospital in Benghazi with the AIDS virus. On Sunday, a Libyan court cleared the medical team of “defamation”, a charge brought against them by Libyan police officers, whom they accused of using torture. The media reported that: “At a hearing lasting less than a minute, the criminal court acquitted the five Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor and ordered the officers who brought the charge to pay the costs”. This, however, does not alter the fundamental matter in this case: the medical team remains under sentence of death if their appeal fails. The nurses and doctor were sentenced to death in May 2004. The verdict was confirmed in December 2006, then suspended pending an appeal which was initially scheduled for May, but later postponed. No date has yet been set for this appeal.
The dismissal of the police officers' complaint could indicate a political will to resolve a problem which is straining relations between the EU and Libya. Behind-the-scenes talks have been going on and it would appear that an agreement was reached in mid-May on the compensation to be paid to the families of the victims. The Gaddafi Foundation, run by the Libyan leader's son, Seif al-Islam, has confirmed this information and has said in a press release that the children's families “welcomed the outcome of the negotiations and the appearance of hopes that the situation could be resolved very shortly”. The Foundation “is trying to find common ground between the positions of the representatives of the Libyan families and those of the international community involved in the case,” said one of its spokesmen. According to Bulgarian media, quoting Foreign Minister Avaylo Kalfin on Friday, an international fund, set up in 2005 to help the victims, was in talks “with the (children's) families at this moment”. “This is not money paid as compensation,” he stressed. Sofia says the nurses are innocent and that there is no need to pay compensation. At any rate, Bulgaria welcomed the acquittal, and called for the case to be brought swiftly to an end. “We welcome the Court's decision. However, the trial which has just ended has not brought the resolution of the main case any closer,” said Bulgarian foreign ministry spokesman, Dimitar Tsanchev. “It is more important that the parties involved concentrate their efforts on the fate of the Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor on the one hand, and on the contaminated Libyan children on the other,” he added. (fb)