"Dismayed". The decision taken by the Libyan judiciary to sentence to death the five Bulgarian nurses accused of having infected with HIV 426 children along with a Palestinian doctor, according to the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (CoE), René van der Linden, "goes against the tangible evidence put forward by neutral experts, which shows the accused persons are innocent, as the Assembly has been claiming for a long time". "The death of the infected children he adds is a terrible disaster, but the execution of other innocents, come to Libya to treat the sick and save lives, would be a terrible injustice". "I ask them concludes Van der Linden not to execute the death penalties and to immediately release the doctor and the nurses, and I ask the international community to do all they can towards this". The verdict of the Libyan judges risks undermining the relations between Gheddafi’s country and the European Union. On January 1st 2007, Bulgaria will join the EU. During the trial, where the defence was not guaranteed at all, the defendants reported they had confessed because they had been tortured.
