A Palestinian
doctor jailed for eight years in Libya along with five
Bulgarian nurses for purportedly infecting children with the
AIDS virus has filed a complaint with the United
Nations charging he was tortured in captivity,
his Dutch lawyer said Wednesday.
Ashraf al-Hazouz
and the Bulgarians, who were pardoned and freed in July,
have said their convictions were based on forced
confessions.
International
medical groups and European governments had championed
their cause, charging that the medical workers were made
scapegoats for unhealthy hospital conditions in Libya.
Libyan authorities accused the workers of deliberately
infecting more than 400 children with HIV.
Lawyer Liesbeth
Zegveld expressed hope Libya would formally admit
wrongdoing and reach a financial settlement with al-Hazouz,
but said the suit filed at the U.N. Human Rights
Committee in Geneva on Tuesday was necessary.
''Without a case,
you don't have any leverage,'' she said.
The U.N. body
oversees the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights, a treaty signed by Libya. Its rulings are
nonbinding, but it could recommend that Libya pay
damages.
''The facts of
the case are pretty clear,'' Zegveld said.
She pointed to
statements made by Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, son of Libyan
ruler Moammar Gadhafi, that the detainees had been subjected
to electric shocks. He made the remark in an interview
broadcast on the Arab satellite station Al Jazeera.
Before their
release, al-Hazouz and the nurses signed statements saying
they had been treated well and would not seek to sue Libya.
Afterward, they said they underwent horrific torture
in detention.
Zegveld confirmed
comments made by her client, who now lives in Bulgaria,
that he had been warned by officials from the Netherlands,
Bulgaria, and the European Union not to take legal
action against Libya. He said officials warned that
could undermine the improvement in relations between
Libya and the West and might jeopardize other foreign health
workers in Libya. (AP)