Bulgaria's Gadafy cartoons rankle ahead of nurses' trial

BULGARIA: Bulgaria has rebuked a national newspaper for publishing cartoons lampooning Libya's president Muammar Gadafy just days before the retrial of five Bulgarian nurses accused of infecting 426 Libyan children with HIV.

Officials in Sofia feared that cartoons mocking Col Gadafy and his country's courts could inflame Libyan passions against the nurses just as behind-the-scenes diplomacy looks likely to secure their release after seven years in jail.

"Freedom of speech entails both rights and responsibility," said Bulgarian foreign ministry spokesman Dimiter Tsanchev, after Novinar newspaper published cartoons that included an image of President Gadafy wielding a devil's trident above a cauldron in which five nurses' hats were floating. "It is unacceptable to use this freedom to instil a religious intolerance uncharacteristic of the Bulgarian people," Mr Tsanchev added.

Libya's Supreme Court overturned death sentences in December against the five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor, some of whom say they were tortured into confessing to deliberately infecting hundreds of children with HIV-tainted blood.

Western governments have demanded their release and international medical experts who have investigated the case say the outbreak in a Benghazi city hospital began before the medics worked there and was caused by poor hygiene.

The retrial begins on Thursday, amid negotiations between Bulgarian, Libyan, British, EU and US officials to find a diplomatic solution to the case, which has caused widespread fury in Bulgaria and Libya.

Tripoli has suggested that the medics may be freed if about €4 billion is paid to relatives of the victims to fund treatment and as compensation.

But Sofia and the nurses' families reject payment of any "blood money" to win the women's freedom, saying it would be a tacit admission of their guilt.

There has also been speculation that, as part of a deal, Bulgaria could forgive Libya about €41 million in Soviet-era debt that has not been serviced since 1989.

But the cartoon scandal has rekindled deep rancour between the countries.

A statement from Libya's embassy in Sofia expressed "deep indignation and disappointment at the publication of humiliating and insulting cartoons to Muammar Gadafy".