BULGARIA. BULGARIA SEEKS UN HELP TO FREE NURSES CONDEMNED IN LIBYA

Bulgaria asked the World Health Organization for help in securing the release of five Bulgarian nurses sentenced to death in Libya being convicted of purposely infecting children there with HIV-tainted blood. Bulgarian officials asked the UN agency in a letter to take an active role in negotiations to free the five women, Health Care Minister Radoslav Gaidarski said. The five nurses and a Palestinian doctor were convicted by a Libyan court in 2004 on charges of infecting some 400 Libyan children with HIV in an experiment to find a cure for AIDS.