Bulgaria's Foreign Minister asked Libyan officials to help secure visas for the main witnesses in favour of the six Bulgarian defendants in Libya's HIV case.

Minister Passy got on the phone his Libyan counterpart, Abd al-Rahman Shalgam, on Wednesday to insist that HIV researchers Prof. Vittorio Collizi and Prof. Luc Montaigner have their Libyan visas issued as soon as possible.

Minister Passy also had a conversation with the son of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, Seif al-Islam, whose foundation monitors the case.

On August 4, the criminal court in Libyan city Benghazi allowed Prof. Luc Montaigner and Prof. Vittorio Collizi as witnesses in the case of the six Bulgarian medics accused of intentionally infecting Libyan children with HIV.

According to a report compiled by the HIV experts, the contamination had resulted from bad hygiene in the hospital where the six Bulgarians were employed. Collizi and Montaigner found that the disease had been spread by an internal infection in the hospital before the six defendants arrived there.