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Reacting to the verdict of a Libyan court which has condemned to death six foreign health workers, World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia has asked H.E. Mu'ammar al-Gaddafi, Leader of the Revolution, to spare their lives on humanitarian grounds.
The health workers - five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor - have been convicted of deliberately infecting some 400 children with HIV in an attempt to find an AIDS cure.
The health workers have protested their innocence and claimed that they were tortured by the police.
Kobia's 24 May letter to the Libyan leader invokes the WCC's long-standing opposition to capital punishment as being contrary to "Christian principles of compassion and love dear to all religions".
The full text of the letter follows:
"I write to you on behalf of the World Council of Churches, a fellowship of 347 member churches from all over the world.
We are deeply disturbed at the sentencing to death of six health workers, including five Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian doctor, by the Court in Libya. The six health workers who worked at a childrens’ hospital in Benghazi have been charged with causing the death of 40 children and of infecting almost 400 others with HIV.
The World Council of Churches is opposed to capital punishment. It believes that all human beings created in God’s image have inherent dignity and are of infinite worth and that the taking of human life is against the will of God. The capital punishment operates against the Christian principles of compassion and love dear to all religions. As long-standing advocate for the abolishment of capital punishment the Council has consistently urged governments to sign and ratify the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that aim at the abolition of the death penalty.
We therefore appeal to your Excellency on humanitarian grounds to grant clemency and spare the lives of Kristiana Vulcheva, Nasya Nenova, Valentina Siropulo, Valya Chervenyashka, Snezhana Dimitrova and Ashraf al-Hajuj.
WCC member churches throughout the world would appreciate the gesture of clemency on the part of Your Excellency."
