Bulgaria's Supreme Administrative Court rejected the appeal of the centre-right party "Order, Rule of Law and Justice" for the refusal of the Electoral Committee to register the Libya-jailed nurses as MEP candidates.

On Tuesday the Interior Ministry prepared some documents proving that the five Libya-jailed nurses and doctor Zdravko Georgiev are eligible to run for MEPs.

The papers were submitted before the Supreme Administrative Court by the lawyers of "Order, Rule of Law and Justice".

Later in the day, an official from the ministry denied the information, explaining the documents contained only the personal data of the medics, Darik News reported.

The body's motives were that existing legislation precludes Bulgarian citizens who have not lived in the country for the three months prior to the elections from voting or running for an MEP seat.

The nurses, jailed in Judeyda prison and sentenced to death, occupy the first five spots on the centre-right party's ticket. Georgiev, who was the only one acquitted, yet never allowed to return to his homeland, is sixth.

Later on Thursday the chairman of SAC Konstantin Penchev held a press conference, presenting the motives of the court for this decision. He claimed the case was pretty easy to judge on from juridical point of view and the nurses could not be allowed to be MEP candidates as the law for MEP candidates forbids it.

The law states that only Bulgarians who have lived in the country or in a EU member state in the three months prior to the election would be able to vote. The five women have spent the past eight years jailed in a Libya jail and this prevents them from taking part in the upcoming May 20 elections. They have been accused of deliberately starting a HIV epidemic in the children's hospital ward in Benghazi.

The leader of the party, Yane Yanev, was visibly angry and upset by Court's decision and said the judiciary in Bulgaria is totally under the control of the three-way coalition. "I am indignant at Supreme Administrative Courts' head Konstantin Penchev because he judged not as a judge but as a party functionary," Yanev said. He underlined his determination to continue "the battle" as he called it.

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