A Libyan court acquitted five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor on Sunday of charges of slandering policemen by protesting that their confessions had been extracted under torture.Crossposted on Soccer Dad
At a hearing lasting less than a minute during which the six defendants were not present, judge Salem al-Homari announced they had been found not guilty and ordered the plaintiffs to pay the legal costs.
The five nurses -- Kristiana Valcheva, Nassia Nenova, Valia Cherveniachka, Valentina Siropoulo and Snejana Dimitrova -- and doctor Ashraf Ahmed Juma had faced a maximum penalty of three years in prison.
The six have already been in custody for eight years and were condemned to death in May 2004 on charges of deliberately injecting more than 400 Libyan children with HIV, which can cause AIDS, at a hospital in the city of Benghazi.
The verdict was upheld last December but a final appeal, originally set for earlier this month, is due to open soon.
The accused said that their "confessions" in the HIV trial were forced from them under torture, including beatings, electric shocks and being threatened with dogs.
The medics, largely viewed as scapegoats by the international community, maintain their innocence based on testimony by foreign health experts who said the AIDS epidemic in Libya's second city was sparked by poor hygiene.
The six foreigners had also filed civil suits against 10 Libyan police officers, accusing them of torturing them. But a Tripoli court acquitted the officers, some of whom then accused the nurses of slander.
Monday, May 28, 2007
AFP: "Bulgarian Nurses Acquitted of Slandering Libyan Policemen"
This just kinda restores your confidence in the system. Via Naharnet:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment