Libya HIV case nurses say not guilty of defamation

TRIPOLI, Feb 25 (Reuters) Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor, sentenced to death for infecting Libyan children with HIV, today pleaded not guilty to charges they defamed two Libyans by accusing them of torture, lawyers said.

A Libyan court sentenced the six, in jail since 1999, to death in December for starting an HIV epidemic in a hospital in the eastern town of Benghazi, to outcry from the West.

Leading scientists have repeatedly said the infections started before the medics arrived.

Libya has remained defiant under international pressure, saying others should not interfere in its courts. But Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's son and leading envoy Saif al-Islam said last month the six would not be executed.

In the HIV infection trial the Libyan prosecution based its case mainly on confessions from some of the nurses, who say they are innocent and were beaten and tortured to admit guilt.

In the defamation case a police officer, Juma Mishri, and a doctor, Abdulmajid Alshoul, are each claiming five million dinars ( 3.9 million dollars) in compensation for distress endured when the nurses gave testimony accusing them of torture.

A Libyan prosecutor urged the court to give the six the ''maximum punishment'' which lawyers said could be a six-year imprisonment term on top of compensation.

The court then put off the hearing until March 11 to give more time to the lawyers of the six medics who first appeared in court two weeks ago when the defamation trial began.

Alshoul and nine Libyan policemen including Mishri were tried and acquitted in June 2005 of torturing the nurses and the doctor.

REUTERS SAM RK2050