FACTBOX-Profiles of foreign medics in Libyan HIV case
Source: Reuters
July 11 (Reuters) - Libya's Supreme Court will rule on Wednesday on an appeal by six foreign medics sentenced to death for infecting Libyan children with HIV. The five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were convicted in December 2006 of deliberately infecting 426 children with HIV. Following are profiles of the accused who have been in jail in Libya since 1999: * SNEZHANA DIMITROVA: 54-years old. Born on Aug 18, 1952. Of the five nurses, Dimitrova's health is most fragile. Formerly a nurse in Sofia, she suffered a nervous breakdown in 2005 and broke her leg last autumn. -- Dimitrova, jailed six months after her arrival at the Al-Fateh hospital in 1998, says it is inconceivable that a nurse and a mother could commit the crime of which she is accused. She has a daughter, Polina, and a son Ivailo. * VALIA CHERVENIASHKA: 52-years old. Born on March 22, 1955. Cherveniashka began working in Benghazi in February 1998. She says she was beaten by Libyan guards but did not confess to infecting the children. -- Her husband, Emil Uzunov, staged a hunger strike in 2003 at the Libyan embassy. He and Cherveniashka's two daughters: Gergana and Antoaneta, have criticised Sofia's handling of the case, saying dozens of nationals from Poland, Thailand and other countries were also arrested but later released. * NASYA NENOVA: 41-years old. Born on July 2, 1966. A nurse for five years in Bulgaria, she travelled to work in Libya in February 1998 and was jailed around a year later. -- She tried to kill herself after she said she was tortured with electric shocks. She has a son Radoslav who was in secondary school when she was arrested and is now at university. * CHRISTIANA VALCHEVA: Valcheva, 48, born on March 12, 1959. Worked six years in Sofia hospitals as a nurse before travelling to Benghazi in 1998. Libyan prosecutors say she is the mastermind behind the case, basing their evidence on blood bags found in her house in Libya, although she never worked in the children's hospital itself. -- "With God as my witness, I am innocent," she told the court in the last trial, when her husband Zdravko Georgiev was acquitted of infecting children. She has a son. * VALENTINA SIROPOULO: 48-years old. Born on May 20, 1959. She was a nurse for 18 years and travelled to Libya in February 1998. Siropoulo, who is married, says she is innocent and she showed compassion to the children in the AIDS ward where she worked. -- She said beatings and torture with electric shocks left her with partial paralysis to her face and unable to talk for months. She has a son. * ASHRAF ALHAJOUJ: A Palestinian doctor in his late 30s who has lived most of his life in Libya, he strongly protests his innocence and says the charges were fabricated by the police. He was born in the Egyptian city of Alexandria in 1969 and came to Libya when he was 2-years old. -- Educated and trained in Libya, he has said it is inconceivable he could harm Libyan children. On June 19 Bulgaria announced that it had granted citizenship to Alhajouj, a decision which could help bring him out of Libya if the verdicts are commuted.
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