July 19
BULGARIA/LIBYA:
New genetic method may help reverse Bulgarians death sentences in Libyas
AIDS trial
A new genetic method may help reverse convictions of five Bulgarian nurses
and a Palestinian doctor, whom Libya has sentenced to death on charges of
causing an AIDS outbreak.
The method dubbed molecular epidemiology was announced in a report
presented to the United Nations by the United States non-government
Council on Foreign Relations _ a group working to make foreign policy
issues better understandable by the public.
The author of the report, Pulitzer Prize winner Laurie Garrett, described
the method as "genetic fingerprinting" and says it allows scholars to
trace changes in the evolution of the HIV virus that causes AIDS and
verify allegations about the source of HIV infections.
Libyas Supreme Court is expected to rule on Nov. 15 on an appeal by the
medics against death sentences a lower court in the city of Benghazi has
handed them on charges of deliberately injecting more than 400 local
children with blood contaminated with the HIV virus that causes AIDS. The
court has ignored testimony by international experts, led by the
co-discoverer of the HIV-virus, French doctor Luc Montagnier, who said the
infection started due to bad hygiene at the hospital years before it hired
the Bulgarians and the Palestinian in 1998.
Lawyer Trayan Markovski, who heads the medics defense team said, Bulgaria
would be able to demand using the "genetic fingerprinting" method only
incase that the Supreme Court rejects the death sentences and returns the
case for reinvestigation. "
"At the present stage of the case the court can accept no other evidence
under the Libyan law," Markovski said.
2 of the nurses and the doctor have said Libyan investigators beat, raped
and jolted them with electricity to extract confessions of guilt, which
the defendant later renounced. These confessions were the only evidence
the court based its verdict on.
(source: Bulgarian News Network)
