Bulgaria to try Libyan officers on torture charges
Source: Reuters
SOFIA, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Bulgaria will try 11 Libyan police officers on charges of torturing Bulgarian nurses to obtain confessions to deliberately infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV, a senior prosecutor said on Wednesday. Sofia is preparing to press charges against the police officers in absentia within four months. In a highly politicised case which started eight years ago, a Libyan court in December sentenced the nurses and a Palestinian doctor to death for starting an HIV epidemic in a hospital in the eastern town of Benghazi. The Libyan 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. European Union newcomer Bulgaria and its allies in Brussels and Washington have decried the verdicts as unfair and have stepped up diplomatic pressure on Tripoli to release them. "There is enough data to open an investigation against 11 Libyans who as accomplices and through threats and violence have forced five Bulgarian nurses to confess to infecting over 400 Libyan children with HIV," said Nikolai Kokinov, Sofia city prosecutor. One of the nurses, Nasya Nenova has said she attempted to kill herself in prison because she could not stand torture with electric shocks. Snezhana Dimitrova testified in 2001 that she had dislocated her shoulder after being hung from a doorway by her arms, hands tied behind her back. Tripoli has tried nine Libyan policemen and a physician on charges of torture and acquitted them in June 2005. The nurses' defence lawyers have said the women will be questioned on Feb. 11 on accusations they have defamed the Libyan police officers by testifying against them. The news of the possible new trial against the nurses, in jail since 1999, has sparked sharp criticism in Bulgaria.
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