Foreigners sentenced to death

last updated 8 January 2015

Benghazi, Libya

Libyan court last week condemned five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to death by firing squad for purposely infecting Libyan children with HIV. In 1999, more than 400 children came down with the AIDS virus at a hospital where the six worked. World health experts blamed the epidemic on the atrocious hygiene in Libyan hospitals, but Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi said the CIA and Mossad had ordered the Bulgarians to conduct HIV experiments on Libyan children. Twenty-three Bulgarians were originally arrested in February 1999 in connection with the infections; most were released. The Bulgarian government called this week’s verdicts “unfair and absurd,” and said President Georgi Parvanov would travel to Tripoli to make a personal appeal to Qaddafi.