Tripoli, Libya
Libya has dropped demands for the death penalty for five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor convicted of deliberately infecting children with HIV. The six medical workers have been in jail since 1999, when they were arrested at the height of a scandal surrounding tainted blood in an unsanitary Libyan hospital. The six say they were tortured into confessing and international observers say their trial was a sham. Bulgarian officials have been negotiating a “compensation” figure, reportedly around $400 million, to be paid to the families of the infected children. Now that the execution order has been lifted, a full pardon is likely.
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