Libya lifts death sentences on medics in HIV case

By Salah Sarrar

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libya lifted death sentences on Tuesday against five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor convicted of deliberately infecting children with HIV, paving the way for them to be freed after eight years in jail.

The ruling, following a payment of $1 million (489,000 pounds) each to 460 HIV victims' families, fell short of freeing the medics and removing an obstacle to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's efforts to end three decades of diplomatic isolation.

But, under a 1984 prisoner exchange agreement with Libya, the North African country can transfer the six workers to Bulgaria, where government officials have said they could be pardoned by the Balkan state's president, Georgi Parvanov.

"The High Judicial Council decided to commute the death sentences against the five Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor to life-imprisonment terms," Libya's High Judicial Council said in a statement.

The six were sentenced to death last year after being convicted of intentionally starting an HIV epidemic at a children's hospital in the Mediterranean port of Benghazi.

The medics say confessions central to their case were extracted under torture and that they are innocent, while Bulgaria and its allies, the United States and the European Union, have demanded the nurses be freed.

"Tomorrow morning we will start working on implementing the transfer of the medics," Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin told reporters in Sofia. "For us the case will end once they come back to Bulgaria."

Foreign HIV experts testified during the case in Libya that the infections started before the six arrived at the hospital and were more likely to be the result of poor hygiene.