ALGIERS - Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi on Wednesday criticised Western attempts to win the release of five Bulgarian nurses condemned to death for infecting hundreds of Libyan children with AIDS.
"I swear by Allah that some Western officials come to me and say 'we want to take them (the nurses) back today, so release them,'" he said during a speech at the Arab summit.
"We told them that the day the court sentenced the nurses to death, demonstrations in support (of their death sentence) were held in Benghazi. The West told us, the opinions of your people do not interest us, our people are sheep and that we have no public opinion," he said.
"The West told us that the world would not tolerate an execution. You want the execution. Release them quickly. We told them 'what do we say about these children?'."
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.
03/24/2005 16:04 GMT