Libyan court denies Bulgarian nurses' bail request
The Libyan court retrying five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor on charges of deliberately infecting more than 400 children with the HIV virus today rejected the defence team’s request to release the medical workers on bail.
The decision came in the first session of the new Tripoli trial that Libya’s Supreme Court ordered late last year after it overturned death sentences handed down against the six in 2004.
Judge Mahmoud Hawisa, the presiding judge on a three-member tribunal, rejected the request for bail after the prosecutor argued that the defendants might try to flee the country.
The prosecutor added that one had already attempted to escape from prison, but he did not elaborate.
Yesterday, the nurses’ defence team said that during the first session they would ask that the six be released on bail because of their fragile health.
But the defence did not make that argument in court today. It justified the request saying the defendants had already spent considerable time incarcerated.
