Ruse Horse

The Chief Prosecutor of Bulgaria Nikola Filchev has sent a letter to Foreign Minister Solomon Passy urging him to aproach the UN Commission against Torture over the case with Bulgarian medics sentenced to death in Libya. Filchev has reminded that both Bulgaria and Libya are signatories to the UN Convention against Torture. According to Article 20, if the Committee against Torture receives reliable information which appears to it to contain well-founded indications that torture is being systematically practised in the territory of a State Party, it shall invite that State Party to co-operate in the examination of the information and to this end to submit observations with regard to the information concerned. Two of the five Bulgarian nurses sentenced to death have complained that they had been made into false confessions through rape, beating and psychological torture for a period of about a year after their arrest in February 1999. If the UN report comes out with a conclusion confirming their complaints, it can be added as evidence to the AIDS trial, Nikola Filchev said in his letter. Earlier the same day, the country's top diplomat reiterated that Bulgaria would not bow to pay compensations to the families of the infected Libyan children in return the release of the medics.

Ruse Chief Prosecutor Calls to UN Torture Trial against Libya