Bush calls for
release of health workers held in Libya

President George W. Bush on Monday said the United States would continue to press Libya to release five Bulgarian nurses who have been sentenced to death for allegedly infecting 400 children with HIV. "The position of the United States government is the nurses ought to be freed," Bush told reporters after meeting with Bulgarian president Georgi Parvanov at the White House. "There should be no confusion in the Libyan government's mind that those nurses ought to be not only spared their life but out of prison. And we will continue to make that message perfectly clear."

The United States and Europe have been pressuring Libya to free five Bulgarian medics and a Palestinian sentenced to death in May 2004 on charges they infected the children with HIV-contaminated blood in an experiment to find a cure for AIDS. International observers said the charges were contrived and extracted by torture.

Bush said he and Parvanov discussed the matter "at length." (AP)