Bulgarians convicted in Libya AIDS trial

Tweet

A LIBYAN court convicted five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor Tuesday of deliberately infecting 400 children with HIV and sentenced them to death. The United States and Europe reacted with outrage to the verdict, which prolongs a case that has hurt Libya’s ties to the West. The six co-defendants already have served seven years in jail. Earlier this month, an analysis of HIV and hepatitis virus samples taken from some of the children concluded the viral strains were circulating at the hospital where they were treated well before the nurses and doctor arrived in March 1998, according to research published by the journal Nature. There is widespread anger in Libya over the HIV infections, and the sentence brought cheers. The Libyan press has long depicted the medical workers as guilty. After the sentence was pronounced, dozens of relatives outside the Tripoli court chanted “Execution! Execution!” Ibrahim Mohammed al-Aurabi, the father of an infected child, shouted, “God is great! Long live the Libyan judiciary!”