EU geschokt na doodstraf voor zes Bulgaarse artsen in Libië (en)

EU-Libya ties, which seemed last week to be blossoming suffered a major setback yesterday when a Libyan court sentenced five Bulgarian and one Palestinian aid worker to death, in spite of EU calls for their trial to be reviewed.

The EU has expressed its concern and outrage at the verdict. In a statement issued last night, Commission President Romano Prodi said he was deeply disappointed by the ruling.

The six have been charged with deliberately infecting around 400 Libyan children with the HIV virus.

EU-Libya ties at risk

In Dublin, the head of the Council and Irish foreign minister, Brian Cowen met his Libyan counterpart Abdurraham M. Shalgam and made it clear that deeper ties with the EU would depend on a satisfactory outcome to the case.

"The Union was greatly disturbed at the decision of the court to find the defendants guilty and to impose the death penalty despite strong evidence from international respected experts as to the innocence of the defendants", a statement from the Irish presidency said.

A visit to Brussels last week by the Libyan leader Colonel Qadhafi was seen by many as a watershed, highlighting a new deepening of EU-Libya ties.

Mr Qadhafi had said he would bring his "moral power" to bear on the case.

Human rights groups say the aid workers are being made scapegoats to cover up the poor state of Libyan hospitals.

According to reports, one other Bulgarian medic, also on trial for deliberately infecting patients with HIV, was mysteriously charged with black market money changing and sentenced to four years in prison, without the original charge being mentioned.

The cases involving the death sentence will now go to appeal.