ON April 15, the Benghazi criminal court will give its verdict in the trial of the six Bulgarian medics accused of infecting more than 400 Libyan children with HIV.

At this week's court session, the lawyer for the Libyan authorities said that it was true that in the children's hospital in Benghazi single-use medical supplies were being used more than once, but argued that the Bulgarian medics were also using them.

Responding to this argument, the Libyan lawyer for the Bulgarians, Osman Bizanti, speculated that the court could find the defendants guilty of negligence.

He did not rule out the possibility of a different verdict for each of the accused.

Bizanti said he hoped that the trial would have a favourable outcome, but emphasised that if his clients were found guilty, he would appeal to the supreme court in Tripoli the following day.

At this week's hearing, one of the lawyers for the infected children argued that a report by international AIDS experts Luc Montagnier and Vittorio Colizzi, according to which the infection was spread because of bad hygiene, contained contradictions, and he demanded additional compensation for the infected children and their families.

Bizanti said that the report of the lawyer representing the Libyan authorities was far from the truth.

According to Bizanti, there was enough evidence that during the spread of the HIV epidemic in the children's hospital in Benghazi, the Libyan health system was experiencing serious problems and the deliveries of medications and supplies were insufficient and chaotic.

Meanwhile, it emerged that the report of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on the trial against the medics, which was demanded by Evgeni Kirilov, a member of the assembly in the beginning of this year, was in favour of freeing the medics. "The report supports our medics," Kirilova said in an interview with Darik national radio.