The re-trial case of a Palestinian doctor and five Bulgarian nurses who have been accused of infecting Libyan children with HIV has resumed in the Libyan capital, Tripoli.
Three parents appeared on Tuesday with their infected children as prosecution witnesses in a Libyan court .They identified the five Bulgarian women as the nurses who knowingly infected 400 children with HIV in a disease outbreak in a Benghazi hospital in 1998.In 1999, the five nurses were sentenced to death by a firing squad. The first trial lasted about six years, and they have been in jail since 1999. Now the medics stand a retrial after the Court of Appeals in Tripoli overturned the death sentences on Dec. 25.
The session before the Tripoli court on Tuesday was the fourth hearing of the often-postponed retrial.
The six medics deny the charges and say that they were tortured into giving false confessions. They say the children were infected through poor hygiene.
The court has again adjourned the retrial until July 25.
