Medical workers
plead not guilty in Libyan AIDS trial

Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor accused of deliberately infecting hundreds of children with HIV at a Benghazi, Libya, hospital pleaded not guilty to the charges this week at their retrial in Tripoli. The health workers were convicted of infecting the children in 2004 and sentenced to death, but an appeals court overturned the conviction in December 2005 and ordered a retrial. The health workers say they were tortured to wring confessions out of them before the original trial. HIV experts, including virus codiscoverer Luc Montagnier, testified at the original trial that the HIV infections occurred before the health workers arrived at the hospital, and were likely due to poor sanitary conditions and the reuse of medical equipment. The court on Tuesday also heard testimony from four witnesses called by the prosecutors, including a father and two mothers of children who contracted HIV while at the hospital. The next hearing in the case is set for July 25. (The Advocate)