A Libyan court has repeated charges that six Bulgarian medical staff and a Palestinian provoked an Aids epidemic through tainted blood products, the Bulgarian foreign ministry said on Monday.
An examining court in Benghazi, northern Libya, charged the medical staff with “provoking an Aids epidemic through the use of contaminated products”, after 393 Libyan children were found to have been infected.
Ais-related diseases have already killed 23 of the children in the al-Fateh children’s hospital in Benghazi, where the Bulgarians worked.
The announcement launched proceedings which could lead to a new trial in a higher court, or a ruling that there is insufficient evidence for the case to proceed.
The medical workers were first charged with “premeditated assassination with the intention of undermining the Libyan state,” which could have resulted in the death penalty, but the case was thrown out when it went to court on February 17 because of lack of evidence.
The Bulgarians — five nurses and a doctor — and the Palestinian doctor, are also accused of illegally making alcohol, having sex outside marriage and trading currency on the black market.
They denied the charges, saying that confessions made by two of the nurses and the Palestinian doctor to Tripoli police were extracted by force, according to the Bulgarian ministry. Their lawyer Othmane al-Bizanti said on Bulgarian television that an examining court is likely to sit several times before making a decision on the case’s future. – AFP