WASHINGTON, March 7 (Reuters) - Libyan security personnel routinely torture detainees, the U.S. State Department said in a report describing the country's human rights situation as poor.

The trial in which five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were convicted of infecting Libyan children with the virus that causes AIDS saw authorities limit the defendants' right to call witnesses, the report on Libya's 2006 rights record added.

The government of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi does not react publicly to foreign criticism of its rights record.

Saif al-Islam, Gaddafi's most prominent son, has said there have been failings in the north African country's rights record but added that the government was working to correct them.

On torture, the report said: "The law prohibits such practices, but security personnel routinely tortured prisoners during interrogations or as punishment."

"Government agents reportedly detained and tortured foreign workers, particularly those from sub-Saharan Africa. Reports of torture were difficult to corroborate since many detainees were held incommunicado."

The state also restricted civil liberties and freedoms of speech, press, assembly and association, the report said.

Gaddafi, shunned internationally for much of his rule amid Western accusations of terrorism, improved his standing in 2003 when Libya accepted civil responsibility for the 1988 downing of a U.S. airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland that killed 270 people.

Months later, Tripoli announced it would abandon its weapons of mass destruction programmes. The announcement drew praise from London and Washington and in September 2004, U.S. President George W. Bush formally ended a U.S. trade embargo.

On the trial of the foreign medical personnel, the report said: "Authorities denied the defendants and their lawyers the right to call witnesses or present evidence while giving wide latitude to the prosecution."

"Defendants and their lawyers had limited access to government held evidence."

The six, in jail since 1999, were sentenced to death in December by a Libyan court for starting an HIV epidemic in a hospital in the eastern town of Benghazi. The prosecution based its case mainly on confessions from some of the nurses who say they are innocent and were beaten and tortured to admit guilt.

In theory the people held power through a "state of the masses" system of popular congresses. "In practice Gaddafi and his inner circle monopolised political power," the report said.

On the positive side, some foreign newspapers went on sale for the first time, the first private radio station was launched and the government started to allow the U.N. refugee agency's Libya office regular access to detention facilities.

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