UN's Annan concerned at Libya verdict in AIDS case

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 22 (Reuters) Secretary-General Kofi Annan on today offered UN help in finding a ''humane solution'' in the case of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor, sentence to death in Libya for infecting more than 400 children with the AIDS virus.

''I am deeply concerned by confirmation of a guilty verdict and a death sentence and, therefore, appeal to the Libyan and the international community to continue working together in a spirit of reconciliation,'' Annan said in a statement measured in its criticism.

A Libyan court on Tuesday handed down the sentence in the eight-year old case. Bulgaria intends to ask the nation's leader, Muammar Gaddafi, to intervene on grounds that the judicial system was biased and that the medics were innocent.

Annan said he had long been following the case and was encouraged by offers from around the world to provide treatment to the children.

''Once again, I offer the support of the United Nations in all efforts to address the needs of the infected children and to find a humane solution for the fate of the medics,'' Annan said, a week before he leaves office.

The nurses arrived in February 1998 to take up jobs at a children's hospital in Benghazi, Libya's second largest city.

By August, children at the hospital tested positive for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

The nurses said they were tortured into confessing they infected the blood supply and foreign AIDS experts say the disease was present before the medics arrived and probably spread by contaminated needles.

Reuters MQA GC0124