Libyan Death Sentences Spark Global Anger

(CBS/AP)  World leaders expressed their outrage Tuesday over death sentences handed down by a Libyan court against five Bulgarian medics and a Palestinian doctor for allegedly infecting hundreds of children with the HIV virus.

In Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice joined Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin in denouncing the death sentences.

With Kalfin sitting by her side at a photo session, Rice said the medics should "be allowed to go home at the earliest possible date.

"We are very disappointed with the outcome, she said.

Other EU leaders also condemned the convictions of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor sentenced to death for allegedly infecting 400 children with the HIV virus.

"It's a terrible ruling, a terrible sentence," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said during a visit to Helsinki. "We think of those who have been convicted. They are in our hearts and minds."

Kalfin said he was "extremely concerned and disappointed" with the verdict. "There are all the reasons to believe that they are innocent," he said.

However, the sentence brought cheers in Libya, where there is widespread public anger over the infections. The Libyan press has long depicted the medical workers as guilty.

After the sentence was pronounced, dozens of relatives outside the Tripoli court chanted "Execution! Execution!" Ibrahim Mohammed al-Aurabi, the father of an infected child, shouted, "God is great! Long live the Libyan judiciary!"

The case has been deeply politicized from the start. International anger over the prosecution has hampered — though not halted — Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's efforts to end his pariah status with the West.

"We call upon the Libyan authorities to intervene immediately and in the name of elementary justice to reconsider and reject these absurd verdicts and to set the Bulgarian medics and the Palestinian doctor free," President Georgi Parvanov and Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev said in a joint statement issued hours after the hearing in Tripoli.

The six defendants, detained for nearly seven years in connection with the deaths, had been convicted in an earlier trial but Libyan judges granted them a retrial last year following international protests over the fairness of the proceedings.

Bulgaria has long maintained the charges are a coverup, and that the children became infected because of unhygienic conditions in the hospital.

"Sentencing innocent people to death is an attempt to cover up the real culprits and the real reasons for the AIDS outbreak," Bulgaria's parliamentary speaker Georgi Pirinski said.

Luc Montagnier — the French doctor who was a co-discoverer of HIV — testified in the first trial that the virus was active in the hospital before the Bulgarian nurses began their contracts there in 1998.

More evidence for that argument surfaced on Dec. 6 — too late to be submitted in court — when Nature magazine published an analysis of HIV and hepatitis virus samples from the children.

Using changes in the genetic information of HIV over time as a "molecular clock," the analysts concluded that the virus was contracted before the six defendants arrived at the hospital — perhaps even three years before.

Idriss Lagha, the president of a group representing the victims, rejected the Nature article, telling a news conference in London on Monday that the nurses had infected the children with a "genetically engineered" virus. He accused them of doing so for research on behalf of foreign intelligence agencies.

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[gaye5]

the article says...."The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, and in this case it has been imposed after a grossly unfair trial."
It is wrong, the ultimate cruelty is to deliberately infect others with HIV, and in my opinion to infect children they should first have to suffer the same fate, and put on an island to suffer alone...However it these are trumped up charges then perhaps it is about time that we did something about deliberate false evidences...

[grazinggoat]

titocordero
U still my preferred Donkey, for ever. How low are your ears today?

[alphaa10-2009]

janem4 said, "bluestardad- "no actionable intelligiece between her ears". I dare say Rice has a higher IQ than pelosi and clinton added up... Rice is 10 times better than reno (let's kill Americans in Waco)..."
---

The problem is you must be reasonable to handle math, and-- sorry-- your statement is not representative of your best. Rice is at least 35 times worse than Reno, by body count, even if you accept the dubious charge the feds intended to kill all those at Waco inside the Koresh compound.

The Waco incident need not distract us from the plight of the doctor and five medics here, except to note there is ample evidence of excessive use of force by federal agents under many presidents, and that any particular abuse is-- sad to say-- more characterisitc of the law enforcement genre (most of them honorable, fine people) than of any particular party or president. Waco cannot be spun freely into a grand conspiracy theory about Reno or Clinton without a lot of blind faith.

[alphaa10-2009]

Wacko on Waco-- 2

Blindness was no issue when Rice stood aside and let Israeli cluster bombs (airfreighted to them by Bush) do their carnage on civilian kids in Lebanon. This was not Waco, but many times over.

On the Iraq invasion-- her IQ notwithstanding her ambition (and you worry about Hillary?)-- Rice leaped to become the Bush replacement for Powell when he had tired of pimping for the war in Iraq. That invasion has cost some 3,000 American dead, tens of thousands more Americans wounded and horribly maimed-- the vast majority after Bush declared "mission accomplished", and the vast majority on her watch.

BTW, I say "pimped" with respect to Powell only because Powell, himself, tried to be a party loyalist, even when it stank. Some may admire such soldierly resolve, and Powell probably does not, in retrospect. Powell was always uncomfortable with the Bush invasion rationale, and finally realized his reputation for integrity had been hijacked by Bush to endorse a fraudulent case for Iraq, even to attempt to make a case before the UN. In 2004, Powell had had enough of Bush and Cheney (and Herr General Reichsmarschall Rumsfeld) and quietly left Bush and his cabal to hang of their own designs.

But we digress, don't we, Jane?

[grazinggoat]

Hi Nad

[j-whitman]

janem,, Rice is one of the morons who called SOB Bush a genious. So much for her high IQ

[susanhelit]

Any outsider is always at risk of being a scapegoat for anything a community doesn't want to face.

[j-whitman]

Susan,, Well spoken.. Can you imagine the risk this puts American aid workers in ??

[susanhelit]

This is not some rare weird event - these kids had AIDS before going to the hospital - they got it like kids get AIDS in their country - from their mother at birth, or through some contact with an infected needle or infected person. It's no conspiracy, just a sad statement on the number of children growing up with AIDS in countries with poor sanitary conditions. But it's so much nicer for those in power, those who have the money, and for the people of the country to believe in a conspiracy rather than the truth, much more consoling to believe you're being held down by others than that you yourselves are holding yourself down.

[j-whitman]

janem,,, Are you nuts ?? Look at the mess Rice & her idiot gang has our country involved in ..