TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) - Prosecutors on Tuesday demanded the death sentence in the retrial of five Bulgarian medics and a Palestinian doctor accused of intentionally infecting Libyan children with HIV. The six are charged with intentionally infecting more than 400 children with the virus that causes AIDS at a hospital in the Libyan city of Benghazi. At least 50 of the children have died.
"Infecting the children with the HIV virus is a savage and inhumane crime and a humanitarian catastrophe," prosecutor Omar Abdel-Khaleq told the court.
The defendants have denied the charges and human rights groups have accused Libya of concocting them to cover up unhygienic conditions at Libyan hospitals.
Bulgaria voiced regret that Libyan prosecutors were seeking the death penalty.
The charge of intentionally causing an HIV infection "is not supported by compelling evidence and has already been rejected by world-known medical experts," Foreign Ministry spokesman Dimitar Tsanchev said.
The six have been held in Libya since 1999. They were convicted and sentenced to death in 2004, but Libya's Supreme Court ordered a retrial in December after international protests that the trial was unfair.
Luc Montagnier - the co-discoverer of HIV - testified last year before a Benghazi court that the virus was active in the hospital before the Bulgarian nurses began their contracts there.
The judge adjourned court hearings until Sept 5.
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