a number of eminent personalities, including writer John le Carre, linguist Noam Chomsky...

a number of eminent personalities, including writer John le Carre, linguist Noam Chomsky and actor Ian McKellen, sent an open letter to Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi in protection of five Bulgarian nurses in Libya. The nurses and a Palestinian doctor were sentenced to death in May 2004 on charges of infecting about 400 Libyan children with AIDS. Representatives of the Bulgarian Medics Solidarity Project were hand the letter to the Libyan Embassy in London. 
"In a recent speech (1st November 2004) to a gathering of judges, lawyers, law students and their teachers, you have repeated that it is your goal to see the death penalty abolished in your country. You are entirely correct in pointing out that such a step represents progress in society and is "one of the fruits of a civilized mind," they said in their address.
"You have recently demonstrated your willingness to remove the obstacles that stand in the way of better relations between Libya and the international community. There could be no better proof of your determination to "magnify the good image of Libya in the world" (as Prof. Montagnier put it) than to ensure that the Benghazi six, wrongly accused and wrongly convicted, are released from their present ordeal and speedily returned to their families and homes," the letter said in conclusion.
The signatories of the open letter included John McCarthy, Misha Glenny, Neil Hannon, Devendra Banhart, Zhelyu Zhelev and Peter Stoyanov, the Medical Foundation, the Bulgarian Medical Association, the Association of Bulgarian Lawyers for Human Rights, Co-ordinating Council of Armenian Organisations (Sofia), Diocesan Council of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Bulgaria.