Alleged Torturers Found "Not Guilty"

I can’t seem to get off that story about those Bulgarian nurses.

A court in Tripoli today acquitted ten Libyans (nine security officers and a doctor) accused of torturing the nurses into making false confessions. “The court has decided that all the defendants are not guilty and were acquitted of the charges against them,” said the court’s presiding judge Abdullah Aoun.

The Sofia News Agency reports one of those acquitted as saying, "We have repeatedly said that we are innocent and today's ruling proves the truth. There is no violence in Libya. The West wants to politicize the case but we left it in the hands of the jurisdiction."

Bulgaria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Gergana Gruncharova said the ruling was “not satisfactory.”

The lawsuit was initiated against the ten Libyan defendants on 25 January 2005, after nearly three years of investigation into the statements of the Bulgarian medics they had been tortured into confessions under a parallel case.

The World Peace Herald reports that the defendants shouted "long live Libyan justice" when the judge pronounced the acquittal. Sources: Aljazzera, Sofia News Agency, Khaleej Times (United Arab Emirates), World Peace Herald