Libya’s supreme judicial council postponed by a few hours its meeting at which it is expected to decide what will happen to the six Bulgarian medics sentenced to death for deliberate HIV infection of more than 400 children.
The council will discuss the case at 6pm (Libyan) local time on July 16 2007, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said, quoting an anonymous official source. The sitting was initially scheduled for 10am.
Libya’s Supreme Judicial Council is a political body, headed by the justice minister. It has the power to repeal, confirm or mitigate the death verdicts of the medics, AFP said.
The medics were arrested in 1999 and sentenced to death in May 2004. The verdicts were confirmed after a re-trial in December 2006 and Libya’s supreme court upheld them on July 11 2007. On July 15, lawyers for the Bulgarian medics’ presented a clemency appeal to the supreme judicial council.
AFP quoted a source that it described as close to the trial as saying that the council had postponed its sitting because it was awaiting the agreement of the families of the infected children to receive compensation in return of the death sentences’ annulment.
On July 15, the families said that they agreed to receive compensations worth $1 million for each infected child, but refused to sign the agreement before the money was paid, AFP said.
