The Tripoli criminal court heard testimony from prosecution witnesses on Tuesday as the re-trial of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor accused of infecting Libyan children with the Aids virus resumed and was then adjourned until July 25.
The three witnesses, a father and two mothers, appeared with their infected children — two boys and a girl — before Judge Mahmud al-Huweissa.
The proceedings were held under tight security as parents carrying pictures o the victims demonstrated outside the courthouse.
A lawyer for the nurses, Othman al-Bizanti, said no defence witnesses had as yet been called to testify.
But a new hearing was scheduled for July 25, when defence witnesses were to be questioned.
Al-Bizanti had earlier asked to be given time to arrange for the appearance of 26 defence witnesses who are currently in the eastern city of Benghazi, where the accused had worked.
At the start of Tuesday’s hearing, Judge al-Huweissa said the five nurses and the doctor were charged with having ”spread an epidemic”.
His statement prompted one of the nurses to declare: ”I am a mother and I treated them as my children.”
The defendants are accused of having infected 426 children with HIV, of whom 52 have since died of full-blown Aids.
The six, who have all asserted their innocence, said their statements to police had been made after they were tortured. The defence also maintains that the infections were the result of poor hygiene at the hospital.
The defendants were detained in 1999 and condemned to death in May 2004 after an initial trial in Benghazi in a case that has strained ties between Tripoli and Sofia.
The supreme court ordered a re-trial following an appeal last December.
On the sidelines of an earlier hearing on June 20, lawyers for the families of the infected children said they would file a complaint against Professor Luc Montagnier, a French researcher and a co-discoverer of the Aids virus.
At the request of Libyan authorities he prepared a report in 2003 on the presence of the virus in the Benghazi hospital before the arrival of the nurses.
Montagnier concluded that the infections were attributable to hygiene problems.
Bulgaria in late December established an international fund aimed at helping Libya combat Aids in conjunction with the European Union, the United States and Britain.
Bulgarian authorities said the money would enable Libya to provide permanent medical care for Aids patients, restore hygiene standards at the Benghazi hospital to international standards and provide financial aid to families of ill children and those who have died.
Libyan families are seeking compensation of $10-million for each infected child, according to Bulgarian television. But the request has been rejected by the Bulgarian government, which insists the nurses are innocent. — AFP
