| Bush disappointed over Libya's death verdict of Bulgarian nurses |
| Last Updated(Beijing Time):2006-12-22 13:58 |
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U.S. President George W. Bush talked with Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov on Thursday by telephone and expressed disappointment that a Libyan court sentenced to death five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor accused of infecting Libyan children with the HIV virus, the National Security Council said.
Bush also offered support for Bulgaria's efforts to seek the release of the medics, according to National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin on Tuesday and said she was "very disappointed" at the outcome of the death verdict.
"And I want you to know, minister, that we will continue to work for their early return to Bulgaria," Rice told Kalfin.
A Libyan court sentenced the five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to death on Tuesday for spreading HIV in a Libyan hospital. The defendants, who had worked at the Al-Fateh hospital in Libya's Benghazi, was accused of infecting more than 400 children with HIV, 52 of whom had died at the hospital in the late 1990s. The six have been in jail since 1999. |
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