EU Steps Up Efforts to Free Bulgarian Medics

Politics » BULGARIA IN EU | June 10, 2007, Sunday // 00:00
Bulgaria: EU Steps Up Efforts to Free Bulgarian Medics A Libyan court condemned to death on December 19 the five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor for knowingly infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV. Photo by Middle-East-Online

Two top European Union officials are expected to arrive in Libya on Sunday to hold talks over the plight of five Bulgarian nurses, sentenced to death in the North African country, Darik News reported.

The medics have been sentenced on charges of deliberately infecting more than 400 Libyan children with the HIV virus, allegations that have been debunked by leading AIDS researchers.

European Commissioner for external relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner and German Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier will meet with Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, his son Seif al-Islam and the relatives of the infected children.

Their visit comes hot on the heels of Tony Blair's trip to Libya, during which he was reported to have struck a deal with the Libyan side, one that could bring the crisis to an end before Germany relinquishes the rotating presidency of the EU later this month.

The relatives are asking for USD 10 M in blood money for each infected child, which Bulgaria, a EU member since January, can hardly afford to pay.

The Bulgarian medics have been in detention since 1999 and were sentenced to death in 2004, a sentence confirmed at the retrial that ended last year.

Neither trial took into account the studies by AIDS researchers Luc Montagnier and Vittorio Colizzi, who said that unhygienic medical practices, and not intentional actions by the Bulgarian medics, fuelled the outbreak.

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