Bulgarian President meets Libyan children

Bulgaria's President met children with HIV in eastern Libya yesterday, days before a court rules on an appeal by Bulgarian nurses sentenced to death on charges they infected more than 400 children with the virus.

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is under pressure from the children's families, but also knows the future of ties with the European Union, which has denounced the verdicts, hinges on the case.

In a gesture of solidarity following Libya's call that more compassion be shown to the victims, Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov toured the hospital in the eastern city of Benghazi which saw an outbreak of HIV/AIDS in 1999. Later he also visited the nurses in a Tripoli prison.

"I want Bulgaria and the whole of Europe to help in the treatment of your children," Parvanov was quoted by a family member of one of the children as saying during the visit.

Parvanov promised, according to family members in Benghazi, Bulgaria would help the EU with the treatment of the children until a modern hospital was built.

Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were sentenced to death by firing squad last year after being convicted of deliberately giving HIV-tainted blood to 426 children. Some 50 children have died, authorities said.

The medics, who have been in jail since 1999, say they were forced to confess under torture. They say Libya has made them scapegoats rather than admit the HIV infections were caused by poor hygiene standards.

AIDS experts have testified in court that the outbreak began before the medics began working at the clinic.

Tripoli's Supreme Court will rule on the appeal on Tuesday when it can call for a retrial or confirm the sentences.

"We will be very disappointed if the death penalties are confirmed on the basis of the existing evidence. We hope there will be a retrial," Bulgarian Deputy Foreign Minister Gergana Grancharova told Reuters in Sofia.

Libyan Prime Minister Shokri Ghanem quoted Parvanov as telling him in Tripoli: "Everyone should respect the legal system in general and the case should be seen as a problem for both sides and we hope it is considered from a humanitarian point of view."

Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel-Rahman Shalgam said late on Friday the executions could be avoided if all parties came to a compromise but stressed the children's suffering must not be ignored.

"What are we going to gain if they are shot to death?" he told Reuters.

Shalgam said the nurses' case could be settled if the victims' families were paid compensation or so-called blood money - a normal practice in Islamic countries. The families could then waive the death sentence.

Bulgaria has refused, saying that would amount to admitting guilt.

Bulgaria, which hopes to join the EU in 2007, has called the verdicts "unfair and absurd" and has insisted the charges be dropped.

Ibrahim al-Oraibi, a parent of an HIV-infected child, said the families told Parvanov during the hospital visit they wanted to be compensated like the families of the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Libya agreed to pay $2.7 billion to the families of crash victims and has taken responsibility for the bombing.

"We trust in the justice system. We will accept any verdict," Ramadan al-Situri, spokesman of the families of the HIV victims, said. "All we demand is justice for the families and children."

EU diplomats expect the court to call for a retrial given that a separate trial is under way in the Libyan capital of nine policemen and a physician charged with torturing the medics into confessing. The verdict in that case is due on June 7.

The EU has begun quietly offering expertise and experience to the Benghazi hospital. EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner lobbied Gaddafi during a visit this week to secure the medics' release.