Foreign medics sentenced to death in Libya HIV case

"Justice has been done. We are happy," said Subhy Abdullah, who daughter Mona, 7, died from AIDS contracted at the hospital in the town of Benghazi where the medics worked.

"They should be executed quickly," Abdullah told Reuters after the guilty verdicts were announced by judge Mahmoud Haouissa at the end of a seven-month retrial of the case.

The six were accused of infecting 426 Libyan children, more than 50 of whom have since died, with HIV at a hospital in Benghazi in the late 1990s. The prosecution had demanded the death penalty. The medics deny the charge.

They were first convicted in a 2004 trial and sentenced to death by firing squad. But the supreme court quashed the ruling last year and ordered the case be returned to a lower court.

European Union Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini said he was shocked and disappointed by the ruling.

Rights groups the world over had rallied to the medics' defence to stop what they say may be a miscarriage of justice.

"After reviewing the documents and hearing the arguments by lawyers of both sides, the court decided on death sentences," Haouissa said. "They caused the spread of the disease that caused the death of more than one person."

Relatives of the children attending the hearing broke down in tears of joy and shouted, "God is greatest."

Referring to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, relatives shouted: "Go ahead, our falcon, in defiance of the West."

The six medics sat calmly as the verdicts were announced.

"The verdicts will change nothing. we are innocent," the Palestinian doctor, Ashraf Alhajouj, told Reuters from behind the bars of the dock.

Luc Montagnier, a French doctor who first detected the HIV virus, has said the infections were first present in the Benghazi hospital in 1997, a year before the medics arrived.

Some Analysts say freeing the defendants would put the focus on alleged negligence and poor hygiene in Libyan hospitals, which Western scientists say are the real culprits in the case.

The case has hampered oil producer Libya's rapprochement with the West, which moved up a gear when it abandoned its pursuit of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons in 2003.

Washington backs Bulgaria and the European Union in saying the medics are innocent.

Tripoli has demanded 10 million euros ($13.11 million) in compensation for each infected child's family -- "blood money" under which Islamic law lets victims' relatives withdraw death sentences in return for reparations.

Bulgaria and its allies have rejected the idea, saying any payout would be an admission of guilt. But, led by Brussels, they are trying to arrange a fund for training and treatment at European hospitals for the children and their families.

The EU's Frattini, who has sought greater cooperation with Libya on migration control, said: "My first reaction is great disappointment. I am shocked by this kind of decision. I strongly hope that somehow the Libyan authorities will rethink this decision."

Analysts have said the case is embroiled in power politics and forecast a solution could take many more months.