US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice said that she was ‘disappointed and concerned’ with the decision of the court in Tripoli to sentence to death five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian medic accused of deliberate HIV infection.
Rice met Bulgarian Foreig Minister Ivailo Kalfin on December 19 2006. Both said that they were hoping that the sentences would not be carried out, Voice of America reported.
US sympathised with the families of the infected children, but called for the release of the Bulgarians and the Palestinian.
The medics ‘[deserved] to go home, and [the US was] very disappointed at he outcome of this verdict,” Rice said. US would continue to work for the release of the Bulgarians, she said.
Libya accuses the Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian medic of intentional HIV infection of 426 children in a hospital in Benghazi.
An initial death sentence was issued in May 2004 but in the end of 2005 Libya’s Supreme Court ordered re-trial. The December 19 court decision is final and can be appealed only once.
