SOFIA - Moamer Kadhafi has invited Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov to visit Tripoli, a day after the Libyan leader criticised Western attempts to free Bulgarian nurses who are on death row after being convicted of infecting hundreds of children with AIDS, the president's office said Thursday in a statement.
Libyan Ambassador to Bulgaria Tahir Benchaban made the invitation on Kadhafi's behalf during talks with Parvanov over Kadhafi's speech Wednesday at the Arab League summit in Algiers.
"The Bulgarians have killed our children. 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,'" Kadhafi said Wednesday.
Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were sentenced to death by a Libyan court in May 2004 for infecting more than 380 Libyan children with AIDS, 47 of whom have died.
Parvanov reiterated his "expectation that the Libyan court will jugde impartially (on the basis of) the evidence on the case and will not be led by political considerations," the statement added.
All six, who have spent six years in prison, insist they are innocent and blamed the AIDS cases on poor hygiene at the hospital.
A Libyan court in Tripoli will consider their appeal March 29.
Two nurses and the doctor initially confessed to the charges but later claimed police extracted their confessions with torture including beatings and electric shocks.
The nurses also launched a civil suit against their "torturers" in January, but it has been postponed twice since then, with the next court hearing to take place on April 26.
Another Bulgarian doctor, Zdravko Georgiev, was released in May since he had already served his sentence of four years in prison, but he still cannot return to Bulgaria.
Libya also insists that his sentence be reviewed and a stricter measure imposed.
The verdict provoked an international outcry with the European Union and the United States calling for Kadhafi to overturn the verdict and release the nurses.
Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Passy is expected to discuss the issue Friday with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a five-day official visit to Washington that began Thursday.
03/24/2005 20:13 GMT