Editorial: Firing squad is not justice

Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2005 | 8:29 a.m.

In 1999, four years before U.S.-Libyan relations began thawing out, five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were arrested in Libya and charged with intentionally infecting more than 400 hospitalized children with the AIDS virus. In May 2004 a Libyan court sentenced the six to death by firing squad. The medical workers have told diplomats and human rights groups that they were tortured in order to bring out their confessions, which they later recanted.

The verdict was rendered despite AIDS experts from around the world, including Dr. Luc Montagnier, co-discoverer of the virus, testifying that the Libyan hospital's overall unsanitary practices, including doctors' multiple use of needles, resulted in the infections. In an interview with The New York Times, Montagnier said some of the children were infected even before the nurses arrived, and others became infected after they were imprisoned.

Libyan authorities originally charged the medical workers with working for the Israeli intelligence service and trying to subvert national security. While those charges were dropped, their sentence of death was not. The Libyan Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the final appeal of the death sentences on Nov. 15.

The European Union and the United States, which opened relations with Libya in 2003 after its dictator, Moammar Gadhafi, agreed to renounce weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, have supported freeing the medical workers. President Bush reiterated that position again on Monday. How Libya reacts will be a testament to its sincerity in partnering with the world as a civilized country.