ALGIERS - Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi insisted Wednesday that he would not pardon five Bulgarian nurses facing the death penalty for allegedly giving children AIDS-tainted blood, despite international appeals for their release.
"I swear by Allah that I will not release the Bulgarians," Kadhafi told an Arab League summit in Algiers.
In May, a court in Benghazi in northern Libya sentenced the five nurses and a Palestinian doctor to death for allegedly infecting more than 380 Libyan children with AIDS and causing the death of 46 others.
All of the defendants, who have spent five years in detention, insist they are innocent.
Two nurses and the doctor confessed to being guilty but later claimed they were tortured by police to confess. They said police officers had beaten them and given them electric shocks.
The trial of 10 Libyan police officers accused of torturing the nurses into confessing was postponed on Tuesday for the second time in two months due to absences among the defence team.
Kadhafi said he was fed up with Western countries' demands for the nurses' release.
"If Western officials come tell me to release them now, I won't do it," he said.
"How can we free the murderers of children," he said, adding that he had personally intervened in the case.
The European Union considers the issue one of the stumbling blocks in resuming normal diplomatic ties with Tripoli.
03/23/2005 15:18 GMT