Un Con Troll Able
12-19-2006, 08:31 AM
By KHALED EL-DEEB and WILLA THAYER, Associated Press Writers 58 minutes ago
TRIPOLI, Libya - A court convicted six foreign health workers Tuesday on charges of deliberately infecting 400 children with the AIDS virus and sentenced them to death, setting off shouts of joy in Tripoli.
The verdict, which will be automatically referred to Libya's Supreme Court, drew quick condemnation from European nations, which have charged that the five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were being made scapegoats. A Western medical study, released too late for the trial, said the infections occurred before the medical workers came to Libya.
The United States and European Union had called for the release of the defendants, warning that the case would affect Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's effort to repair his rogue image and rebuild ties with the West.
But Libyans strongly supported a conviction. A few dozen relatives of infected children — about 50 of whom have died of AIDS — waited outside the court holding poster-sized pictures of their children and placards reading "Death for the children killers" and "HIV made in Bulgaria."
After the verdict, the crowd chanted "Execution! Execution!"
"God is great!" yelled Ibrahim Mohammed al-Aurabi, the father of an infected child, as soon as the presiding judge finished reading the verdict. "Long live the Libyan judiciary!"
The nurses and doctor have been in jail since 1999 on charges that they intentionally spread the AIDS virus to more than 400 children at a hospital in the city of Benghazi during a botched experiment to find a cure for the disease.
Western nations blame the infections on unsanitary conditions at Libyan hospitals and accuse Tripoli of using the six workers as scapegoats.
Bulgaria and the EU swiftly condemned the verdict.
"Sentencing innocent people to death is an attempt to cover up the real culprits and the real reasons for the AIDS outbreak in Benghazi," Bulgaria's parliament speaker, Georgi Pirinski, said in the capital, Sofia.
EU spokesman Johannes Laitenberger in Brussels, Belgium, said the bloc's leaders were "shocked by this verdict." He said there was no immediate decision on EU action against Libya but said he "did not rule anything out."
France, where about 150 of the infected children have been treated, reacted strongly.
"France deplores this verdict," said Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy, adding that his government was "fundamentally opposed" to the death penalty.
The chief Bulgarian counsel for the workers, Trayan Markovski, said the defendants would appeal to the Libyan Supreme Court. Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel-Rahman Shalqam told reporters the verdict would automatically be referred to the Supreme Court.
He added that after the Supreme Court review, the case would also be heard by the Judicial Board, which could overturn the ruling. He described the case as having "a political dimension," alluding to international pressure on Libya to free the defendants.
Presiding Judge Mahmoud Hawissa took just seven minutes to confirm the presence of the accused — who all answered "yes" in Arabic — and read the judgment in the longest and most politicized court process in modern Libyan history.
The five Bulgarians and the Palestinian did not react.
Detained for nearly seven years, the defendants had previously been convicted and condemned to death, but Libyan judges granted them a retrial last year after international protests over the fairness of the proceedings.
An international legal observer, Francois Cantier of Lawyers Without Borders, criticized the retrial as lacking scientific rigor. "We need scientific evidence. It is a medical issue, not only a judicial one," Cantier said after the verdict.
On Dec. 6, too late for use in the trial, Nature magazine published an analysis of HIV and hepatitis virus samples from the children. Using changes in the genetic information of HIV over time as a "molecular clock," analysts concluded the virus was contracted before the six defendants arrived at the hospital — perhaps even three years before.
Oxford University, which took part in the study, issued a statement saying the verdict "runs counter to the conclusion reached by a research team from Oxford University's Zoology Department who, in collaboration with several European universities, showed that the subtype of HIV involved began infecting patients long before March 1998, the date the prosecution claims the crime began."
This is terrifying because it could have happened to any healthcare worker from any country. Why any conservative would want to willingly interact with the cultures of that region is beyond me.
I get the sense that the days for these nurses may be numbered. And they have already been in prison for SEVEN years.
Unbelievable.
The rest of the story:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061219/ap_on_re_af/libya_bulgaria_aids_trial
TRIPOLI, Libya - A court convicted six foreign health workers Tuesday on charges of deliberately infecting 400 children with the AIDS virus and sentenced them to death, setting off shouts of joy in Tripoli.
The verdict, which will be automatically referred to Libya's Supreme Court, drew quick condemnation from European nations, which have charged that the five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were being made scapegoats. A Western medical study, released too late for the trial, said the infections occurred before the medical workers came to Libya.
The United States and European Union had called for the release of the defendants, warning that the case would affect Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's effort to repair his rogue image and rebuild ties with the West.
But Libyans strongly supported a conviction. A few dozen relatives of infected children — about 50 of whom have died of AIDS — waited outside the court holding poster-sized pictures of their children and placards reading "Death for the children killers" and "HIV made in Bulgaria."
After the verdict, the crowd chanted "Execution! Execution!"
"God is great!" yelled Ibrahim Mohammed al-Aurabi, the father of an infected child, as soon as the presiding judge finished reading the verdict. "Long live the Libyan judiciary!"
The nurses and doctor have been in jail since 1999 on charges that they intentionally spread the AIDS virus to more than 400 children at a hospital in the city of Benghazi during a botched experiment to find a cure for the disease.
Western nations blame the infections on unsanitary conditions at Libyan hospitals and accuse Tripoli of using the six workers as scapegoats.
Bulgaria and the EU swiftly condemned the verdict.
"Sentencing innocent people to death is an attempt to cover up the real culprits and the real reasons for the AIDS outbreak in Benghazi," Bulgaria's parliament speaker, Georgi Pirinski, said in the capital, Sofia.
EU spokesman Johannes Laitenberger in Brussels, Belgium, said the bloc's leaders were "shocked by this verdict." He said there was no immediate decision on EU action against Libya but said he "did not rule anything out."
France, where about 150 of the infected children have been treated, reacted strongly.
"France deplores this verdict," said Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy, adding that his government was "fundamentally opposed" to the death penalty.
The chief Bulgarian counsel for the workers, Trayan Markovski, said the defendants would appeal to the Libyan Supreme Court. Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel-Rahman Shalqam told reporters the verdict would automatically be referred to the Supreme Court.
He added that after the Supreme Court review, the case would also be heard by the Judicial Board, which could overturn the ruling. He described the case as having "a political dimension," alluding to international pressure on Libya to free the defendants.
Presiding Judge Mahmoud Hawissa took just seven minutes to confirm the presence of the accused — who all answered "yes" in Arabic — and read the judgment in the longest and most politicized court process in modern Libyan history.
The five Bulgarians and the Palestinian did not react.
Detained for nearly seven years, the defendants had previously been convicted and condemned to death, but Libyan judges granted them a retrial last year after international protests over the fairness of the proceedings.
An international legal observer, Francois Cantier of Lawyers Without Borders, criticized the retrial as lacking scientific rigor. "We need scientific evidence. It is a medical issue, not only a judicial one," Cantier said after the verdict.
On Dec. 6, too late for use in the trial, Nature magazine published an analysis of HIV and hepatitis virus samples from the children. Using changes in the genetic information of HIV over time as a "molecular clock," analysts concluded the virus was contracted before the six defendants arrived at the hospital — perhaps even three years before.
Oxford University, which took part in the study, issued a statement saying the verdict "runs counter to the conclusion reached by a research team from Oxford University's Zoology Department who, in collaboration with several European universities, showed that the subtype of HIV involved began infecting patients long before March 1998, the date the prosecution claims the crime began."
This is terrifying because it could have happened to any healthcare worker from any country. Why any conservative would want to willingly interact with the cultures of that region is beyond me.
I get the sense that the days for these nurses may be numbered. And they have already been in prison for SEVEN years.
Unbelievable.
The rest of the story:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061219/ap_on_re_af/libya_bulgaria_aids_trial