Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were sentenced to death in May 2004 on charges of intentionally causing an AIDS outbreak at a Benghazi children's hospital, sparkling cries of foul from Bulgaria and its allies the United States and the European Union (EU). The court ignored world-renowned AIDS experts testimony that the outbreak started before the medics began working at the clinic.
The open letter to the general secretary of the United Nations was sent by the international nongovernmental organisation "Lawyers without bonders". According to it the arrests of the Bulgarians were "brutal" and the medics were physically and mentally tortured.
The authors of the letter also bring up facts from the Libyan trial against the Bulgarian medics and the results from the professor Luc Montagnier expert report, which acquitted the medics. According to the co-discoverer of the virus the epidemics broke out due to poor hygiene at the Benghazi hospital where the incident took place. They also say that the infection spread before the nurses' arrival at the hospital.
The letter of "Lawyers without bonders" underline that many world human rights organisations have stood up against the "unfair" trial and the capital sentences.
Source: Novinite, BBC
