SOFIA (Reuters) – Bulgaria will try 11 Libyan police officers on charges of torturing Bulgarian nurses to obtain confessions to deliberately infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV, a senior prosecutor said yesterday. Sofia is preparing to press charges against the police officers in absentia within four months. In a highly politicized case which started eight years ago, a Libyan court in December sentenced the nurses and a Palestinian doctor to death for starting an HIV epidemic in a hospital in the eastern town of Benghazi. The Libyan prosecution based its case mainly on confessions from some of the nurses, who say they are innocent and were beaten and tortured to admit guilt. “There is enough data to open an investigation against 11 Libyans who as accomplices and through threats and violence have forced five Bulgarian nurses to confess to infecting over 400 Libyan children with HIV,” said Nikolai Kokinov, Sofia city prosecutor.

ISTANBUL (AP) – Turkish prosecutors charged a seventh suspect yesterday for his alleged involvement in the slaying of ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink. A prosecutor’s office said Salih Hacisalihoglu was charged for his alleged involvement in the killing, without specifying the exact charges. The 30-year-old was detained in the Black Sea coastal city of Trabzon earlier this week.

Croatia’s anti-corruption commission has given Prime Minister Ivo Sanader 15 days to provide a list of his wristwatches – some reportedly worth tens of thousands of euros – and explain how he acquired them, officials said yesterday. The commission’s request came after local media reported earlier this month that Sanader owns a large collection of expensive watches that he failed to declare when taking office in 2003, triggering public criticism. (AP)

Former Prime Minister Ivica Racan, also the leader of Croatia’s strongest opposition party, has cancer and will withdraw from politics until he recovers, he said yesterday. Racan’s absence from politics could be a blow to his Social Democratic Party – which ranks the second-strongest in the polls behind the governing Croatian Democratic Union – with new parliamentary elections set for November. Racan said he was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his right shoulder and will undergo surgery in the coming weeks. He said he would make a definitive decision on whether to return to politics after the surgery. (AP)