(Adds Alhajouj, closing remarks, outlook for Nov 4 session) By Salah Sarrar TRIPOLI, Oct 31 (Reuters) - Poor hygiene and neglect led to the infection of hundreds of Libyan children with HIV, the defence said in closing remarks on Tuesday at the retrial of six foreign medics accused of deliberating infecting the children. Five Bulgarian nurses and Palestinian doctor Ashraf Alhajouj, who have been in custody since 1999, face a possible death sentence on charges they intentionally infected 426 Libyan children with HIV at a hospital in Benghazi. "I remind you that international scientists found that the epidemic was not through injections but through the re-use of syringes," Alhajouj's lawyer, Touhami Toumi, said. "The epidemic in the hospital was not because of deliberate injections (of HIV) but because of poor hygiene, neglect and lack of equipment." Luc Montagnier, a French doctor who first detected the HIV virus, has said it emerged in the Benghazi hospital in 1997, a year before the medics arrived. He said in testimony at their first trial the children were most probably infected through negligence and poor hygiene. The medics were found guilty nonetheless and sentenced to death by firing squad. But the supreme court overturned the ruling last year and ordered the case returned to a lower court. The medics have denied the charges in both their first and second trials and have repeatedly testified that they were tortured to make them confess. "Methods of torture were practised on the accused to force them to make confessions," Othman Bizanti, a lawyer for the Bulgarian nurses, told the court. CONFINED WITH POLICE DOGS Bizanti said that already in 1997 -- before the nurses came to Libya -- about 207 cases of HIV infection had been found in Benghazi that had never resulted in any legal proceedings, and he questioned why the authorities had not followed them up. Bizanti demanded the court find the Bulgarians not guilty. Toumi said police "pressure" on the six took the form of imprisonment in substandard conditions, on one occasion, in the earlier stages of detention, being confined with police dogs. In June 2005 a Libyan court acquitted nine Libyan policemen and a doctor of torturing the medics. The medics' case, as well as questions over Libya's human rights record, have been seen as hurdles to expanded links with the West at a time when Washington is in the process of resuming full diplomatic ties with Tripoli after decades of hostility. The retrial has been delayed repeatedly since it began in May. The court has dismissed demands by lawyers to release the medics on parole, arguing the charges are too serious for the defendants to be free. Alhajouj told Reuters as the hearing broke up: "As God is truth, my innocence is true. I hope that the respected court will take into consideration the defence lawyers' pleadings. ... I offer my regret to the children, the victims." Washington backs Bulgaria and the European Union in saying the medics are innocent. Libya has proposed compensation which, the authorities in Tripoli say, would open a way for the pardon and the release of the medics. Sofia rejected the proposal. Lawyers of the families of the infected children have asked for 15 million Libyan dinars ($11.6 million) for each child in compensation. With more than 400 children involved, the total compensation demanded would come at around $4.6 billion. The hearing was adjourned until Saturday Nov 4. Lawyers said court President Mahmoud Haouissa was expected to hear the prosecution's closing statement and set a date for judgement.
