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Court delays ruling on foreign medics

May 31, 2005 8:56 PM

Libya's Supreme Court on Tuesday delayed until November 15 a ruling on an appeal by five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor sentenced to death for deliberately infecting hundreds of children with the HIV virus.

In a surprise decision, Supreme Court president judge Ali al-Alous said the ruling was postponed to complete deliberation of the case, which has damaged European Union-Libya ties.

The medics, who have been in prison since 1999, say they are innocent and were forced to confess under torture.

"It's a big case. The court needs to hear many witnesses and go through many documents and it's normal that it takes such a decision," defence lawyer Ottman Ali Bizanti told Reuters.

"It's a good thing for the defendants and we are happy with the decision," he told Reuters at the Tripoli court.

Dozens of families of the children infected with HIV virus, which causes AIDS, protested and scuffled briefly with riot police as they tried to storm the Tripoli court.

The medics say the North African country has made them scapegoats rather than admit the HIV infections of 426 children were caused by poor hygiene standards at the hospital in Benghazi, Libya's second largest city.

A separate court in the capital will announce its verdict on June 7 in a trial of nine policemen and a physician charged with torturing the foreign medics.

The European Union has called the death sentences a major obstacle to Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's push to renew ties with the West. The EU does not accept the evidence under which the medics were convicted on scientific grounds.

Gaddafi is under intense pressure from the children's families, who demand punishment for a tragedy Libya says has so far killed 50 children in a city where tribal roots run deep.