EU Commish Praises Bulgarian Nurses Courage

Politics » BULGARIA IN EU | June 11, 2007, Monday // 00:00

European commissioner for external relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner praised on Monday the courage of five Bulgarian nurses, sentenced to death in Libya.

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.

Ferrero-Waldner and German Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier are in Libya to meet with relatives of the infected children, as well as Libyan officials over the plight of the nurses and one Palestinian doctor.

"I admire the courage of the Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor, who have gone through this ordeal for eight years now. They can rest assured that I will continue to work with all my powers to achieve their liberation - the sooner the bette," Ferrero-Waldner said.

"We do see a window of opportunity for a solution and it is our intention to make sure that it doesn't close before we can use it," she went on to say.

The visit by Ferrero-Waldner and Steinmeier 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 of the children 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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