The six health care workers in Libya who were accused of intentionally infecting children with AIDS have had their death sentence confirmed. According to Revere, this is good news. It means the case now moves to the High Judicial Council, which has the power to commute the sentence, and which is also government controlled … and the government has just accepted (or, more accurately, “extorted”) a deal for lifetime care of the affected kids. We may know as soon as next week that the falsely accused doctor and nurses will have been released to their home countries. We hope.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
That is good news, I guess.
I wonder that Michael Egnor’s view would be on this one. It was clear from the court details that the crucial evidence that demonstrated the medics were wrongly accused was the evolutionary tree data based on HIV viral sequence analysis. This showed that the virus was already present and widespread within the hospital system before the medics arrived.
Would he really be prepared to dismiss this sort of data (unfortunately pretty much as the recent trial judges did in this case), with the obvious downstream consequences for the accused?
Sure he would. He wouldn’t need evidence, after all- only the fact that the workers were accused by people of the “wrong” color and religion.
Libya has already paid out compensation on the Lockerbie incident, so that even as recent doubts about its involvement emerge it will gain no satisfaction. Libyans are probably able to remember the al-Megrahi railroading, and probably also remember America strafing the presidential residence (in retaliation for an Israeli nightclub bombing) and killing, among others, Qaddafi’s young daughter.
The Tripoli 6 are clearly innocent but, as the British and the Americans have just as clearly demonstrated, individual innocence and guilt have little to do with the affairs of nations.
Of course individual innocence and guilt has nothing to do with the affairs of nations. For example, there are reports that Qaddafi “adopted” that dead girl from the morgue after the bombing to claim greater victimhood for himself. He’s no angel, either.
I hope this is resolved to our satisfaction soon. This was a stomach-churning case. Thanks too all who kept us informed!
I heard that the Lybian Supreme Court upheld the death sentences today.
This is traditional behavior from the Libyans. They raided the Mediterranian and coast of Africa for centuries, taking slaves and booty. They raided American shipping until the US government got fed up with it, declared “Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute!”, formed the US Marine Corps and forced Tripoli to back down by force of arms (if you never wondered where the phrase “… to the shores of Tripoli” come from, you should have been more curious).
Hostage-taking for ransom is explicitly endorsed by the Koran and hadiths. So are special taxes on infidels, the so-called “jizya”. Holding nurses and demanding money fits right in with that, justified by the facts or not.
The West is making a huge mistake in caving to these tactics, because it will just encourage more of them. These traditions must be universally understood even across the Muslim world as backward and wrong, and that cannot be done by making them pay.
Everybody wants to play pirate these days (Arr!) but the real pirates get no respect.
“Qaddafi “adopted” that dead girl from the morgue after the bombing”
Oh, not actually Qaddafi’s daughter? Well, that’s all right then. She probably totally deserved it. Not being related to an important person and all.
Neither did anyone in the disco in Berlin deserve to be bombed. The key point is that Khadaffi was very circumspect after he was put on notice that both his credibility as a leader and his personal skin were on the line.
Actually, very BAD news now …
See:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/libya/story/0,,2123614,00.html
ARGHHHH!
“Qaddafi “adopted” that dead girl from the morgue after the bombing” Oh, not actually Qaddafi’s daughter? Well, that’s all right then. She probably totally deserved it. Not being related to an important person and all.
Don’t be such an ass. You know perfectly well that’s not what I said! As it turned out that girl may not have been a victim of the bombing at all. Don’t put words in my mouth that are not there. What is the matter with you? What are you so angry about? Don’t pick a meaningless fight with someone you don’t even know.