LIBYA/EU: Libya's decision to sentence five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to death by firing squad has "cast a shadow" over the improving relationship between the European Union and Tripoli, a senior EU official said at Dublin Castle yesterday. Deaglán de Breadún Foreign Affairs Correspondent reports
A Libyan court yesterday sentenced the six medical staff for deliberately infecting hundreds of Libyan children with the HIV virus. The External Relations Commissioner, Mr Chris Patten said that, during a meeting between EU representatives and the Libyan Foreign Minister, Mr Abdurraham M Shalgam, "we expressed our considerable shock and concern at this morning's announcement".
Mr Patten continued: "I very much hope that the Libyan authorities will move rapidly to meet our concerns and the wholly-legitimate concerns of the Bulgarian government on this issue, because it does cast a shadow over a relationship which we hoped was getting better".
Mr Cowen said that, in his capacity as president of the Council of Ministers, he had asked to see his Libyan counterpart formally to convey the EU's "profound concern" about the verdict. "I urged the Libyan authorities to consider carefully the need for a rapid reconsideration of the verdict in this case through the appropriate channels," the Minister said.
Bulgaria condemned the "unfair and absurd" verdicts and called for a strong reaction from its Western partners - the EU, NATO and the United States.
The health workers, detained in early 1999, were convicted of infecting 426 Libyan children at a Benghazi hospital with blood products contaminated with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Defence lawyers said they would appeal the sentences and had 60 days to do so.
Scores of dancing and chanting relatives of the HIV-infected children took to the streets after the verdicts were announced.
"The verdict is fair. What they did is a crime against humanity. They planted a bomb inside our children," said Ramdane Ali Mohamed, whose sister died of AIDS. More than 40 of the children have died since 1999.
The medics had pleaded not guilty, insisting they were not to blame for the epidemic. Nine Libyans were tried for torturing the confessions out of the Bulgarians, but all were acquitted. - (Additional reporting Reuters)