No bail for six medics in Libyan HIV sham

Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor who have been imprisoned in a Libyan jail since 1999 on spurious charges of deliberately infecting more than 400 children with the HIV virus, have had their request to be released on bail rejected.

The group were initially sentenced to death in 2004 but a new trial at Libya's supreme court, was ordered last year after it overturned the death sentences given to the six health workers.

Presiding judge, Mahmoud Hawisa, rejected the defence team's request to grant bail on the grounds of ill health after hearing prosecution arguments that the defendants might try to flee the country.

The five nurses, Christiana Valcheva, Nasya Nenova, Valentina Siropulo, Valya Chervenyashka and Snezhana Dimitrova, and the Palestinian doctor, Ashraf al-Hazouz, have now been in Libyan custody for seven years.

The medics are accused of knowingly infecting more than 400 children with HIV in the coastal town of Benghazi as part of an alleged experiment to find a cure for the disease.

However the European Union, the United States along with human rights groups have accused the Libyan authorities of blaming the hospital for poor hygiene practices that they say caused the infections.

The EU and U.S. both welcomed the order for a retrial, and have made it clear that future relations with the Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi may well depend on the outcome of the case.

Colonel Gadhafi is himself facing great pressure in Libya over the case as the relatives of the 426 infected children have carried out angry protests following the order for a new trial in December which came shortly after the U.S., EU and Libya agreed to set up a fund to help the families of the infected children.

Apparently 50 of the children have already died.

The first trial, which resulted in the guilty verdict, lasted almost six years

The medics say they were tortured into giving false confessions and their claim is supported by human rights group Amnesty International which has reported accounts by the women of how they were tortured with electric shocks and beaten until they confessed.

Two nurses said they had been raped.

The court has adjourned the trial until June 13 and meanwhile Libya continues to take steps in order to resume full relations with the U.S.

Diplomatic ties were restored in 2003 after Libya agreed to compensate families of the Lockerbie victims and curtailed its nuclear programme.