Business of the Bulgarian nurses

The business of the Bulgarian nurses is a long diplomatico-legal procedure which took place in Libya between 1999 and 2007 and in which the accused, five Infirmière S Bulgarian (Kristiyana Vultchéva, Nassia Nénova, Valéntina Siropoulo, Valya Tchervéniachka and Snéjana Dimitrova), and a young person Médecin naturalized Anesthésiste of Palestinian origin Bulgarian (Ashraf Al-Hadjudj) were shown several crimes.

Summary of the business

The five nurses arrive to Libya in 1998 to work in the Pédiatrie; Ashraf Al-Hadjudj, the young doctor Palestinian anesthetist, initially carried out a training course of end of professional training and took part with the nurses in the humanitarian operations carried out in the hospital of Benghazi.

With the whole beginning of 1999, the Libyan medical departments discover that more than 400 children looked after at this hospital and having undergone blood Transfusions is infected by HIV. Twenty-three Bulgarian working in or for the hospital and a Palestinian doctor then are stopped and imprisoned, this last and the five nurses being marked, following a judicial enquiry, several crimes, unquestionable liable to the capital punishment:

  • Criminal actions on the territory Libya driving N with the Homicide premeditated several people (punishable offense of the Capital punishment);

  • Participation in a foreign plot organized to commit a crime of international terrorism with objective to reach with the safety of the Libyan State;
  • voluntary Contamination by HIV of at least 393 children, having started an epidemic of AIDS at the Hospital of the children Al-Fatih of Benghazi;
  • Contrary actions to the standard and the Libyan traditions (of which manufacture and consumption of alcohol, Adultery and Lust).

During the eight years of legal procedures in Libya, about fifty infected children will die of the AIDS or convenient diseases.

The nurses and the doctor denounced at the time of one of the lawsuits their detention conditions and the practice of the Torture by their guards, but those were not continued by Libyan justice and on the contrary carried felt sorry for slandering.

In a related lawsuit with this business, a Bulgarian doctor, the doctor Zdravko Guéorguiev, husband of Kristiyana Vultcheva, come to Libya after the inculpation from this one, was him also condemned to a 4 years of prison sorrow for illegal possession of foreign currencies, then put under house arrest, and is still on standby of a visa of exit (August 2007).

July 24th, 2007, after their death sentence, confirmed in call, are commuted to life imprisonment, the five nurses and the doctor were finally extradited towards Bulgaria after protracted negotiations carried out by the European Union and the proposal for a financial compensation for the families of patients. They were repatriated on a French aircraft, and were grâciés by the Bulgarian president as of their arrival with Sofia. At the beginning of November 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy, accompanied by the singer Sylvie Vartan who made much for the mediatization of this business and their release, returned visit to the nurses and to the doctor. The president with receipt on this occasion a decoration given by the president of Bulgaria.

The epidemic of El-Fath in Libya

The epidemic of El-Fath is broadest and more the serious incident documented in the history of Infection nosocomiale (contracted in hospital medium) with HIV (the virus responsible for the Sida) like with that of the Hépatite C, while at the same time the modes of contamination were documented and the means of protection known and diffused on a world level. The Libyan public opinion was very gone up and of many foreign medical workers were stopped - six were finally accused. The Libyan president Mouammar Kadhafi initially showed the American CIA or the Israeli Mossad of the plot to lead a fatal experimentation on the Libyan children.

The crisis bursts at the in November 1998 great day when the Libyan magazine “ the ” (number 78) publishes a talk on the Sida at the Hospital of the children of Benghazi. , In December the Association of the Libyan writers pays more than 60 cases of AIDS hitherto for this only year in Libya. “ the ” questions then Sulaiman Al-Ghemari, the Libyan Minister for the Health, which reveals to them that the majority of the cases concern children. The parents believe that their children were contaminated by blood transfusions in the principal hospital of the children of Benghazi. The magazine “ the ” was censured and closed but it was finally revealed that more than 400 children had been infected.

Libya required and received an emergency team of the WHO which was missionnée in December and remained in Libya until January 1999. The team of WHO produced a secret report/ratio classified (always inalienable) on the situation.

Scientific studies and reports/ratios

The report/ratio of the WHO of Dr. P.N. Shrestha (1999)

The report/ratio of the the World Health Organization (WHO) described in 1999 the visit paid by the team of WHO (D R P.N. Shrestha, D R A. Eleftherious and D R V. Giacomet) in Libya with Tripoli, Syrte and Benghazi between on December 28th, 1998 and on January 11th, 1999 whereas the Bulgarian ones were still employed in the personnel of the hospital.

This report/ratio is apparently classified confidential and one knows of them only some elements brought back by experts to the lawsuit:

“This report/ratio strongly suggests that the infections nosocomiales with the HIV at the hospital Al-Fateh were caused by multiple sources of infections. Moreover, the team of WHO notes the absence of the supplies and necessary equipment such as the containers of blades, sterilizers, incinerators, protective gloves, etc WHO noted several similarities with the epidemic emergences previously documented among the children with Elista in the ex- Soviet Union in 1988, and Romania in 1990. In particular, practice consisting in using persistent intravenous catheters for the injections in the hospitalized children, as well as the division of the same syringes, without adapted sterilization, appears among the probable causes of the emergence of Benghazi. ”
Montagnier/Colizzi, 2003.

The mission of expertise of Professors Montagnier and Colizzi

There were several reports/ratios carried out on the Libyan emergence of the HIV. Most important of those, the “Final report of Prof Luc Montagnier and Prof Vittorio Colizzi” was commissioned by the Jamahiriya Libyan woman under the aegis of UNESCO. Montagnier and Colizzi had access to all the files of the infected subjects available to the Hospital of the children of Benghazi as to the samples taken in the European hospitals which had dealt with some of the ill children, like with the taking away carried out with Al-Fath .

Their report/ratio concludes that the infection at the hospital results from bad measurements of hygiene and the re-use of the syringes, and that the infections began before the arrival even nurses and foreign doctors in 1998. Through the recordings of the hospital and sequencings DNA of the virus, they went up the infection with the patient n°256 who was allowed 28 times between 1994 and 1997 in the blocks Ward B , ISO and Ward have , and think that this patient was the probable source of the infection. The first intercontamination occurred during the admission of this patient in 1997. The report/ratio concludes that the recordings of admission of a total of 21 of the children “ proves definitively that the infection with the HIV of hospital Al-Fath was already active in 1997 ” and that “ Ward B was already highly contaminated in November 1997. ” The epidemic made “snowball” in 1998 while touching much more than 400 children.

Montagnier and Colizzi have both testified in person at the time of the lawsuit with Benghazi for the recording to defense, and their report/ratio was officially versed with the file as a piece of evidence.

The final report of Prof Luc Montagnier and Prof Vittorio Colizzi (2003)

Professor Luc Montagnier (Paris, France), one of the very first discoverers of the HIV, and the professor Vittorio Colizzi (Rome, Italy), two of the largest scientific celebrities most expert in the world in the knowledge of the HIV and the AIDS, were sharpened as international scientific consultants by the Secretary of Arab Jamahiriya Libyan.

Requests were made at all the European foreign hospitals which received the Libyan children, to obtain their full co-operation.

UNESCO organized a visit for Prof Colizzi at the hospital of Benghazi in order to have access to all the files concerning the infected subjects available to the hospital, and to collect all the samples and taking away available. The sequencings of the isolates of the HIV (AIDS) and VHC (hepatitis C) starting from other taking away since children and adults infected at the hospital of Benghazi and since of other local communities were carried out by independent laboratories. It was to carry out a scientific report/ratio on all the collected data and to establish suitable conclusions on the infection.

While working starting from Libyan documents at hospital Al-Fatih, the patients were divided into seven categories according to the history of their case. The two professors could establish that the first infection (patient zero) “ was already present at the hospital of Benghazi in April 1997 ” and they found that “ according to the digitized Al-Fateh lists for the year 1997, at least 7 children were already infected. At least 14 children allowed and left the hospital in January and February 1998 (before do not take to their station at the hospital the Bulgarian personnel judged before the Court) were found as HIV positive when the analyzes were made in at the end of 1998. ”

By recalling the history of the seven patients who were infected in 1997 and who were not allowed at the hospital after 1998 (Category has, case n° 308,312,340,350,356,373,385) the team thinks that the patient n° 356 which was allowed 28 times between 1994 and 1997 in the blocks Ward B , ISO and Ward has was the probable source of the infection. a comment notes that “ Ward B was already highly contaminated in November 1997. ”

Three children (category B, case n° 349,376,384) were admitted and found HIV positive after February 9th, 1999, date of the departure of the Bulgarian personnel. a comment notes that “the infection was still active also, in absence of the Bulgarian personnel. ”

“For the infections include in the categories ABC, it does not exist any proof establishing a relation between the presence of the Bulgarian personnel at hospital Al-Fateh (arrived the first week of March 1998, present until February 9th, 1999): their full number is of 32. But, even more important, the categories has and C prove definitively that the infection with the HIV in the hospital Al-Fateh was already active in 1997. The identity of the grouping of sequences DNA in the HIV of these infections nosocomiales, published by the Italian and Swiss groups, states firmly that the infection existed already in 1997 and could not be propagated in 1998 and 1999.”

The report/ratio concludes then with this formal declaration:

  • “the infection nosocomiale with the HIV of the children which occurred at the hospital Al-Fateh of Benghazi in 1997-1998 présumément originated in the use of materials of injection by blood without one of the children infected via a not identified transmission horizontal or (more probably) vertical. This putative patient zero was already present in the hospital before 1997 (first child sequence) and the horizontal contamination of some children occurred already in 1997, continued in the year 1998, and still in March 1999 (last child sequence). All the samples sequences starting from these children (1997-1998-1999) belong to a similar sub-type viral, which indicates a common origin firmly.
  • “stock HIV responsible for this infection nosocomiale belongs to sub-type A/G, a recombining form of the virus frequent in central and Western Africa. The virulence of transmissibility and the pathogenicity of this particular stock of VIH-1 A/G could be given as being particularly high, as that could be suggested by the possible rétroinfection since certain children infected towards their mother via breast feeding with the center.
  • “the high number of cases (nearly 450) and the period of time of the infection nosocomiale (more than three years) can be explained at the same time by the high specific infectivity of this stock and by some practical incorrect used by the medical personnel and male nurses over this period. This assumption is also supported by the high percentage of personnel infected in hospital Al-Fateh (two nurses vis-a-vis a total of 50 cases of infection among the hospital workers everywhere else in the world after 20 years of circulation of the HIV). The deterioration of the payments and specific measures established to avoid the infections nosocomiales (not only HIV but also of the VHC), the broad introdaction of invasive medical procedures, the lack of disposable supplies leading to the re-use of materials of injection are all of the plausible reasons which can explain this so massive infection nosocomiale.
  • “No proof was found injection deliberated on materials contaminated by HIV (bioterrorism). The epidemiologic stratification, according to the chronology of the admissions, the data of seropositivity and the results of the molecular analysis are opposed firmly against this possibility.”

The panel of Libyan experts elected by the prosecutor

The prosecutor refuted the Montagnier/Colizzi report/ratio with an answer formulated by a panel made up of 5 Libyan experts. This panel disavowed the conclusions without ambiguity of the Montagnier/Colizzi report/ratio because there was no proof that there ever was re-use of the syringes in any of the Libyan hospitals. Moreover, the Libyan panel affirmed that the permanent intravenous catheters were not available to the hospital and were never imported. The Libyan panel as concluded as so of such unsuitable practices had been in place, there would have been wide and serious emergences over a much more long period of time, contrary to the current authority.

Colizzi then submitted a letter to the President of the Court of justice confirming that him and Montagnier denounced the character nonscientific of the report/ratio of the panel of the prosecutor and pointed finger all the data which the Libyans referred as “soft” were precisely those collected by the Libyenne part. It conlut while declaring:

“Our impression is that the goal of this report/ratio carried out locally was to move the responsibility for the infection nosocomiale with the HIV since the health workforces of the hospital towards the Bulgarian foreign personnel. Of course the latter can share a share of this responsibility, while using or acceptor of such incorrect practices, but that does not mean action deliberated with an aim of poisoning children.”

However the prosecutor will retain the conclusions of the panel of Libyan experts given in their report/ratio.

The scientific community then became politically muddled in various events when the criminal Court of Benghazi rejected the Montagnier/Colizzi report/ratio in favor of the conclusions of the Libyan “experts”. To the reading of the judgment, Colizzi said that the scientific obviousness used against the defendants “is so irrational that it is incredible” and that the verdict was read “like a bad spy film.” Professor Colizzi then submitted a letter to the President of the Court of justice, by declaring that:

“The scientists did their work, the play is in the hands of the politicians and journalists.” Dr. Vittorio Colizzi

Final report by the Libyan Committee of experts national

The summary of the report/ratio (dated December 28th, 2003) was published in '' Nature Newspaper, '' 443-7114.

“Summary of the results:

  • the emergence of HIV at the hospital of children Al-Fateh was observed only in certain treatment units. Such units, which recorded the concentrated infections, the least likely were compared with the other units with higher risks of emergence.

  • a distinctive point in the epidemiological study of this emergence is that emergence localized at this particular hospital and was not observed in any of the other hospitals of the town of Benghazi.
  • the permanent catheters were never imported by the administration of the hospital and were not used by the medical personnel in a medical care. Moreover, there does not exist proof of the re-use of the syringes or any other pointed disposable object in the aforementioned hospital. That refutes what was declared in the report/ratio of Montagnier and Colizzi.
  • the genetic analysis of the virus causing the disease established the virus like single and was not previously recorded at the genetic Bank.
  • the incidence of a broad number of infected children is a strange accident and is difficult to explain as a medical accident which would be the result of the misuse or the lack of medical instruments.
  • the scientific reports/ratios submitted by the foreign experts who support the assumption of an infection nosocomiale, miss obviously epidemiologic and of scientific proof.
  • the analyzes in laboratories of the extracts of plasma proved that they were contaminated because of the presence of antibody to the antigens of the HIV.
  • the death rate (10,6%) of the infected children (to date) is high and indicates strong infections. The laboratory results on the children infected following their arrival in Switzerland for treatment indicate a high viremy. This type of infection cannot be correlated with not deliberated infections nosocomiales or negligences.
  • the direct cause of mortality among the children was the HIV (AIDS) accompanied by opportunist infections.

“In conclusion:

“According to the examination of the attached scientific documents, the medical reports/ratios and the memoranda of defense: with all the respect from the scientific point of view and according to the recognized scientific practices, the National committee of experts shows that the emergence of AIDS in the hospital of children Al-Fateh did not occur in consequence of an infection nosocomiale and did not occur because of the misuse and/or the re-use of medical instruments. Moreover, the available data for us did not contradict the possibility of a transmission deliberated on the HIV to the infected children. ”

Dr. Amina Saleh Abusidra
Dr. Othman Al-Shibani Al-Zentani
Dr. Mohamed Dhao Ighniah
Dr. Ibrahim Abdusalam Abeid
Dr. Osama Awadh Al-Zwai
Sunday, December 28, 2003

Genetic analysis initially published in Natural

December 7th, 2006, the scientific newspaper influence Nature published a new study which examined the history of the changes of the HIV found in the blood samples of some of the children, and concludes that a number of these children was infected well before the 6 defendants arrive to Libya. Moreover, one common ancestor of the stocks which infected the children was already present in Libya. The study was based on statistical models on the rates of evolution of the HIV derived from preceding emergences., The publication was reported in newspapers of the whole world and started a campaign organized by Nature calling with the payment of the defendants.

The authors of the study agreed to make entirely available the data which they used so that independent confirmations can be made.

The chief of Libyan association children infected by the HIV affirmed that the study did not have a scientific value.

Refutation of the study on the genetic analysis in the Libyan Newspaper of medicine

Omar Bagasra, MANDELEVIUM, PhD in Départment of biology of the Center of South Carolina for Biotechnologies
Mohammad Alsayari, MANDELEVIUM of the Center of South Carolina for Biotechnologies
The case of the Libyan emergence of the HIV-1

Libyan Newspaper of medicine : “How do we find the truth? ”

Prof Omar Bagasra and its group discussed in detail the published précédemments reports and required to examine the Lymphocytes T CD4+ of the children infected to exclude an intentional infection with the HIV.

British medical expertise and proof related to the Co-infection with hepatitis C

An international team led by Tulio de Oliveira, of the Université of Oxford, watch that the VHC (virus of the Hépatite C) infecting half of the 400 contaminated by the HIV, and the HIV itself, circulated in the hospital before the arrival of the defendants, and that the contamination of the children would result mainly from the defective hygiene of the establishment.

Libyan victims of the HIV

Much more than 400 children (460 cases were retained in the last lawsuit) were infected by an extremely virulent and contaminant form of HIV (one of the very many alternatives of mixed group A/G, this group being very present in central Africa and of the East) at the Hospital of the children El-Fath of Benghazi. The majority developed the AIDS, very often also accompanied by an Co-infection with the virus of hepatitis C of the same origin. Some receive a treatment in Europe but the number of died until now exceeded the bar of the 50 victims. Parents and families or tutors of the children protested and asked so that the sentences deaths be carried out. Libyan the Prime Minister Shukri Ghanem insisted that the exit of the lawsuit is based entirely on legal questions “.” In a short speech on the television channel Qatar I Al Jazeera , M R Ghanem declared that all the efforts would concentrate now on the infected children, “who are prone to a sentence of dead each day.”

The families of the infected children also asked for compensations for the actions taken by the guilty medical personnel: figures of more than 10 million dollars per family were advanced. In July 2007, Libya announced that an agreement had been obtained, with approximately 400 million dollars towards the 426 victims' families in exchange of the conversion of the sentences of died towards the defendants into custodial sentence with life.

Charges in the Libyan lawsuit of the AIDS

In February 1999, therefore after the mission D `urgency of expertise on WHO with Benghazi but before this one returns his report/ratio which will be reported only to the lawsuits, the Bulgarian embassy announced that 23 Bulgarian specialists had been “ kidnapped .” One week later, the Bulgarian diplomats were informed by the Libyan authorities that “ conservative measures” had been taken against the doctors and Bulgarian nurses working at the Hospital of the children of Benghazi. The majority of the Infirmière S were recruited by the Bulgarian company of State Expomed to work with the Libyan Hôpital, where remunerations were considerably higher than than they could perceive at them, and to begin their work in February 1998.

March 7th, 1999, six members of the group prone to the “conservative measures” are formally adopted for a reason related to the case of the infection of the children of Benghazi by HIV. The group includes/understands Ashraf Al-Hajuj, a Palestinian intern, and the Bulgarian nurses Kristiyana Vultchéva, Nasya Nénova, Valéntina Siropulo, Valya Tchervényashka and Snéjana Dimitrova. They will be largely known later like “ the Six of Benghazi .”

Cases of tortures towards the prisoners

All the defendants stated to be tortured during their interrogation or their detention, which appears even more shocking when it is known that they were stopped after international observers were present in Libya before even as publicly does not start the business which will imply them later, and will lead to their arrest.

In May 2005, Human Rights Watch received their testimonys in the prison of Jadida.

  • Ashraf Ahmad Djum' has Al-Hadjudj (the brother of the doctor, a released marked time then) paid to have lost an eye and one with its hands is paralyzed.
  • Ashraf Ahmad Jum' has, the Palestinian intern, testified in Human Rights Watch “ We underwent a torture barbarian, sadistic, for a crime which we did not have made. (...) They used electric shocks, drugs, tabassages, dogs of police force, and the deprivation of sleep. ” the interview was led in the presence of a prison warder. “ the confession was like a multiple choice, and when I gave a bad answer, they shocked me. ”
  • Kristiyana Vultchéva said that the interrogative ones used a small machine with cables and a handle which produced electricity. “ During the shocks and torture, they asked me from which the AIDS came and which was our role. ” It told how the interrogative Libyans subjected it to electric shocks on its chest and its genitals. “ My consents were entirely in Arabic without translation. (...) We were ready to sign anything just to stop torture. ”,
  • Snéjana Dimitrova declared that its hands were attached behind the back and it was suspended since a door to dislocate its shoulders, and one ordered “ Avoue to him or you will die here. ”
  • Nasya Nénova testified “ We were only over there with these men who did all that they wanted to make. ”
  • Valéntina Siropulo testified in Human Rights Watch “ I acknowledged during torture with electricity. They put wire to me on my teeth and my inches. Sometimes they put of them one on my inch and another on my language, the nose or an ear. (...) They had two types of machine, one with a lever, and another with buttons. ”

The lawyers of the marked medical personnel asked for 5 million of Libyan dinars (approx. 3,7M$US or 3,1M€) in compensation. The major part of the evidence is based on the medical reports/ratios prepared by the Bulgarian authorities concerning the marks, scarres and burns present on the body of the defendants.

After several times of procedure, the lawsuit of the shown Libyan guards of torture began at the end of May 2005. They denied all the loads against them. June 7th, 2005, the 10 of torture Libyans were discharged and none was imprisoned or condemned.

The prisoners were then continued by several Libyan police officers to have calumniated them by allegations of torture. However on May 27th, 2007, the Bulgarian prisoners were discharged from these new loads and the police officers constrained plaintiffs to pay the court fees.

Defendants and their defense

In the beginning, 23 foreign medical personnel was stopped, the majority Bulgarian, but 17 were slackened and are quickly turned over to Bulgaria. Moreover, 11 Libyan nationals were stopped and accused of the pled crimes. Doctor Zdravko Georgiev, Bulgarian come to Libya to see his wife (Vultchéva) quickly was stopped and considered to be guilty of the offense of illegal transaction of foreign currencies. The following Libyans were also stopped and judged for facts of noncriminal nature:
  • Atia At-Tahir Ali Al-Juma (directing of the hospital of Benghazi);
  • Halifa Milyad Mohammed Al-Sheriff, Abdul Azis Hussein Mohammed Shembesh, and Abdul Menam Ahmed Mohammed Al-Sheriff (persons in charge of the safety of the hospital);
  • Idris Maatuk Mohammed Al-Amari, Salim Ibrahim Suleyman Abe Garara, Mansur Al-Mansur Saleh Al-Mauhub, Nureddin Abdulhamid Halil Dagman; and
  • Musa Saad Suleyman Al-Amruni (assisting secretary of the medical sector of Benghazi).

The doctor Ashraf Ahmad Djum' has Al-Hadjudj

Photographs:
Palestine: information coming from database PIWP

The first blamed in the lawsuits, it is a young doctor of Palestinian origin which completes its training of anesthetist as an intern in training course at the hospital of Benghazi.

According to the point of view of the Libyan prosecutor, he is the man in the center of the fatal criminal loop of the nurses, dedicated to an implying plot of the agents of foreign governments, culprit also of broad financial affairs, illegal and hybrid sexual practices, and of illegal alcohol consumption. He is shown murder of 426 Libyan children to the service of this plot intended to destabilize the country. It is a hospital intern who started to work at the hospital two months before the discovery of the emergence of the epidemic.

Its family stated to have had to flee Libya after being depicted by the media Libyans like “assassins of innocent children” and resides now at the Netherlands where it found refuge. The cousin of Ashraf in Palestine, As' AD Al-Hadjudj, declared with the Turkish Daily News , that Ashraf had lost an eye and that one with its hands was paralyzed because of the torture which it endured in prison., Ashraf Al-Hadjudj obtained Bulgarian nationality on June 19th, 2007.

Arab petition for its release: الحملةالدوليةلاعادةفتحملفالجريمةالنكراءبحقأطفالبنغازيوتقديمالجناةللقضاءالعاد

Kristiyana Vultchéva

Photographs:

Kristiyana Vultchéva was not recruited by Expomed . It is the woman of D R Zdravko Guéorgiev which was stopped with the others but finally recognized not culprit of all the criminal loads carried against him, apart from its judgment for traffic of currencies.

Described by the Libyan prosecutor as the head of the loop of the plot, one allotted to him that she spoke Arabic and carried out a luxurieux lifestyle. The four other nurses testified that they had never seen Vulcheva before the binding of the eyes after is not removed to them what they described like a “kidnapping” by Libyan safety, after being brought the first time to the police station in February 1999. Vulcheva was also the only defendant and convinced to have illegally distilled alcohol. Defense pointed out that no ustensil intended for this use could be produced at the time of the lawsuit. She admitted with the lawsuit to have seen Ashraf at the Hospital of the children of Benghazi. Contrary to Ashraf, it forever acknowledged to have had sexual relationships with him, which was necessary to convince of the crime of adultery according to the Libyan law. It withdrew its consent that bottles would have been given to him by a British citizen, which would have been used to infect the children, also denying to know any nobody known like “John English” or to be paid with “large money sums” in order to infect the children

After the reimposition of the sentence of died in 2006, it was announced that Vulcheva now sought to be made represent again by Vladimir Sheitanov. Plamen Yalnuzov had replaced it as a representative of Bulgarian in 2002. After the verdict, his/her mother publicly beseeched “ We address our entreaties to the British government and the victims of Lockerbie. We are quite conscious that this problem is painful for all, but in the name of most human of the professions we let us ask them their compassion and to let Megrahi leave. ”, referring to Abdel Basset hound Ali Al-Megrahi which carries out a custodial sentence with life in Scotland following the Attentat of Lockerbie in 1988.

President Khaddafi did not cease comparing the two cases: after the verdict of 2006 he said “ the organizations like the Arab Ligue, the Mouvement of non-aligned the and the Islamic conference declared that Al-Megrahi was a political prisoner and international observers said that elements of foreign secret services were present at the lawsuit… Nobody asked for his release. ”

Nasya Nénova

Photographs: (with Kristiyana Vultchéva)

Nasya Nénova tried to commit suicide. She testified that she had confessed consents and tried to commit suicide because she feared to be tortured again.

She was questioned at the same time as Ashraf and declare with the lawsuit that they had been beaten and that there was no interpreter. She did not admit having had sexual relationships with him. She, like Vulcheva, were the only nurses having admitted to know Ashraf of sight before but she affirmed never to have spoken to him. She denied to have wanted to commit suicide with the reason for the culpability for what she had done.

With the lawsuit, she declared “ I am not guilty of any the charges. My conscience is clear. ” and “ We did not have the protection of anybody, we did not have a doctor. We were only over there with these men who did all that they wanted to make. ” It stated to have tried to withdraw its consents on July 17th, 1999, but colonel Juma came and threatened it to renew torture if it persisted.

She wanted to again designate Vladimir Sheitanov as a substitute of lawyers to defense Yalnyzov and Byzanti after the sentence of death pronounced in 2006.

Valya Tchervényashka

Photographs:
Interview of his/her daughter in 2005 on NPR:

She comes from Byala Slatina. She was recruited by the company Expomed . Her husband Emil Uzunov, in an interview in 2003 with the Bulgarian National radio (BNR) said that the defense counsel Bizanti was one of those having practiced torture and beat the six medical personnel lasting the first interrogations. Tchervényashka had to correct the account: “ I suppose that my husband was too nervous and reacted with excess. ”

His/her daughter Antoaneta Uzunova, 28 years old, made the following comment on this case in 2005: “ It was terrible… The loads were absurd then, they remained absurd now. When I heard them described as of the agents of the CIA… I knew what would occur. Then we discovered that our loved beings had been tortured in the cruelest way. It is a nightmare. ” To did another occasion it tell “to nurses of small towns in Bulgaria and being used as agents of Mossad? That appears laughable and absurd until you carry out that your mother could die for that. ”

She seeks has redésigner Vladimir Sheitanov as substitute of defense counsels Yalnyzov and Byzanti after the sentence of death pronounced in 2006.

Snezhana Dimitrova

Photographs:

Dimitrova did not arrive at the hospital of Benghazi before August 10th, 1998. She was recruited by Expomed . She only is condemned to be indicated and taken along in interrogation during the first instruction of the medical workers on December 14th, 1999. She then had been held during 10 day, then réarrêtée with the others on February 10th, 1999.

In a handwritten declaration of 2003 with the Bulgarian Minister for the Foreign affairs, Snezhana Dimitrova described the undergone torture which included electric shocks and the blows. “ They attached me the hands behind the back. ” writes it. “ Then it hung to me with a door. That seems as if they drew aside you on all sides. My chest was twisted and my shoulders was uncoupled their joints from time to time. The pain is indescribable. The translator howled “Acknowledges, or you will die here.” ”

Valéntina Siropulo

Photographs:

“ I acknowledged during torture with electricity. They put small wire to me on my teeth and my inches. Sometimes they put of them one on my inch and another on my language, the nose or an ear. There was a manual rocker to run the current. They had two types of machines, one with a lever, and another with buttons. ”

Zdravko Guéorgiev

Photograph:

Doctor Zdravko Guéorgiev, husband of Kristiyana Vultchéva, came to Libya after his wife was stopped. He was accused with the others but was finally declared not culprits of all the other loads after being convinced of offense of traffic of currencies.

Defenders

  • the Libyan lawyer with defense clerk of office, Othman Al-Bizanti
  • the Bulgarian medical consultant near defense, Dr. Danail Beshkov
  • the Bulgarian lawyer, Vladimir Sheitanov
  • the Bulgarian lawyer, Plamen Yalnuzov

Lawsuits

Lawsuits 44/1999 front popular Court of Libya (cancelled)

(February 7th, 2000 - February 17th, 2002) The lawsuit starts without the Bulgarian State being officially informed.
  • the base of the lawsuit are the consents of some defendants and the assumption of the Head of the State Mouammar Kadhafi that the defendants worked for the CIA and the Mossad.
  • During the lawsuit, the defendants declare that the consents were extorted to them by the Torture. The thesis of Kadhafi is rejected like absurdity by the international press and experts.
  • A few months after the beginning of the lawsuit, the lawyers Vladimir Chéitanov and Osman Bizanti request from the court the change police custody due to the physical status and psychic of the defendants. Maître Chéitanov affirms that the provisional retention of almost two years is incompatible with the legal principle that each person is innocent until the proof of the opposite.
The court does not see an evidence of the charges of plot against the State. However the Juge declares that the popular Court is not qualified in this case. (The popular Cour is the first of the three authorities in the Legal system of Libya.) A new lawsuit will have to take place, but the defendants are maintained in detention at the request of the Libyan State.

First lawsuit 213/2002 front criminal Court of Benghazi

(July 8th, 2003 -… 2004) Libya withdraws its initial charges of association of plot for the CIA or Mossad. But, it makes new charges for illegal tests of drugs and contamination with the HIV. Experts answer that such charges are impossible and inefficient from a medical point of view. The business thus becomes criminal and will be judged in Benghazi before the criminal Court.

The experts Luc Montagnier (of the Institute Pasteur, discoverer of the virus of the AIDS) and Vittorio Colizzi were called to deliver their opinions. According to them, the infection with Al-Fatih is caused by bad hygiene and started as of 1997, i.e. before the defendants are not engaged. After hearing, BBC published on its site a report on the lawsuit with the title “the Bulgarian nurses did not diffuse the AIDS. ”

This lawsuit concludes with the culpability of the defendants, but does not fix a sorrow yet. The possibility of the capital punishment will have to be established in a second lawsuit. While waiting for the fixing of repairs, the accused declared guilty remain in prison.

Second lawsuit 607/2003 front criminal Court with Benghazi

(… 200Х - May 6th, 2004)

In January 2004, the European Union recommends to Libya to withdraw the loads towards the nurses and doctors Bulgarian and Palestinian in a letter transmitted by the Ambassadeur S of the the United Kingdom and the Holland.

Amnesty International, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the the United States and other international organizations post their concern for the continuation of the lawsuit, thinking rightly that the first judgment will be simply enterriné without analyzing the evidence exposed at the time of the first lawsuit and fearing that indeed the capital punishment is marked at the time of this second lawsuit.

The mediations tried by the British, German and French governments fail, Libya estimating that they are not entitled any to intervene in a lawsuit concerning of shown of another nationality and in a country which does not relate to them. The Libyan justice and authorities are offusquent even of this interference, and are made echo in the official Libyan press of it.

In spite of the international protests which become more numerous, the criminal Court condemns to the capital punishment the nurses Kristiyana Vultchéva, Nassia Nénova, Valéntina Siropoulo, Valya Tchervéniachka and Snéjana Dimitrova as well as the Palestinian doctor Ashraf Al-Hadjudj to have deliberately contaminated more than 400 Libyan children with HIV. The court condemns also the defendants to pay allowances with the parents (or tutors) of the contaminated children.

The Bulgarian Government which works for the release of the defendants, qualifies the judgment of unjust and absurd. The defendants appeal on July 5th, 2004.

Doctor Zdravko Guéorguiev (the husband of one of the Bulgarian nurses and come to Libya to assist its wife Kristiana Vultchéva before its lawsuit) is also condemned to 4 years of prison, amends and withdrawal of the civil laws for possession and illegal sale of foreign currencies. There will carry out its sorrow, but will remain assigned with residence in Libya and placed in the Bulgarian embassy, for lack of Visa of exit because of the loss of its civil laws.

At the end of the year, the negotiations for the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union succeed. This time, Bulgaria will be able to profit from the European supports, their condemned citizens having to become also European citizens.

Cassation in call before the Supreme court of Tripoli

( 2005 - December 19th, 2006 ) December 25th, 2005, the Supreme court of Tripoli breaks the first judgment of the criminal Court and agrees to reopen the appeal, this one will begin in May 2006. According to the Libyan laws, the Supreme court cannot accept new incriminating evidences.

According to defense Bulgarian (and the three French lawyers mobilized which knows the operation of Arab justice), certain incriminating evidences were incorrectly interpreted in the preceding lawsuits.

New lawsuit before the Supreme court of Tripoli

However, on December 19th, 2006, the Supreme court confirms the legitimacy of the judgment of the five nurses as well as doctor anesthetist, considering the evidence exposed convincing and sufficient to establish their culpability.

However the legal experts in Arab justice put forward in Bulgaria that a solution negotiated with the Libyan families would be an alternative way of payment, not to neglect, independently of the Libyan civil legal action. With the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union, the business bulgaro-Libyan woman takes another importance and implies the very whole European Union now directly.

This one decides without ambiguity for the release of condemned Bulgarian and European and put forward the incompatibility of the capital punishment with the European statutes. An interdependent and official request is made by the European Union in Libya, so that the question of the applicable sorrow is re-examined by the Supreme court. On its side the European members of Parliament decide in favor of the innocence of the accused, and make the point that the question of the culpability was not established about established evidence, and that evidence of their innocence was voluntarily drawn aside by Libyan justice.

At the diplomatic level, Libya starts to formulate requests for a possible measurement of leniency, requests exhorbitantes which Bulgaria cannot only answer. Support campaigns are carried out in the world, and Europe seeks allies in the Arab countries.

However the Supreme court must still rule on the nature of the judgment, and confirm the sentence.

Year 2007

End of the lawsuits, death sentences confirmed in civil call and alternative financial solutions

The families of the victims fix at 4,4 billion euros the amount due to put an end to the business, that is to say approximately 10 million euros per contaminated child. Their defense association declares however that this amount remains negotiable provided that one wants to hear them well and respects the Islamic commands (i.e. the absence of counterpart and the total acceptance of the payment, in exchange of the non-application of the civil double pain in the plan).

Meanwhile, Bulgaria granted Bulgarian nationality to the young doctor Palestinian anesthetist (who accepts it on June 19th, 2007 to show his solidarity with the Bulgarian nurses condemned with him), which permetait to him to be legally defended by the Bulgarian and European representatives negotiating for the release of all condemned; other European countries had also proposed their assistance with the Palestinian doctor.

On his side, the prosecutor of the Supreme court of Libya asks for the confirmation of the capital punishment. The magistrate affirms that the evidence of “the inoculation deliberated on the virus on the AIDS” was established, contradicting testimonys of experts. July 11th, 2007, the capital punishment is confirmed against the 6 Bulgarian ones. The ways of Libyan legal procedure are exhausted. There remains only the measurement of leniency by the Libyan president.

However, according to the Libyan legislation, it is a civil judgment, which do not prohibit the recourse to the Chariah (Islamic law) according to which the families could see their completely repaired complaint (what, in the Libyan legislation, would cancel the other civil continuations unless an high jurisdiction or Libyan authority gives a judgment or a decision prohibiting the recourse to the chariah) by the financial compensations suggested by the international negotiators and in particular Bulgaria, France, the European Union and the United States, and a great number of humanitarian organizations and support for the Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor.

Indeed, the Islamic law provides that the Diyya (plural: Diyyat ; Arabic: دية, an old word of the pre-Islamic time which means at the same time the “price of blood” and the “ransom” but which was quoted in the Coran to determine the usual terms of them and morality) can constitute a repair “right” for a crime, if it does not give place to a remuneration (intended for the enrichment or the profit of other people) but only one compensation for the only crime to its only victims, and it then cancels any other request for repair or judgment if it is directly versed for them. The Koranic law also prohibited some other person from drawing profit from part of repairs or judgments (the right of the victims prevails if it is sufficient and right, and the civil common right cannot replace this private law).

In this case, it was about financial arrangement with the families of the contaminated children, and that Bulgaria, European Union, of many other European countries, like certain Arab countries concerned also by the humane medical assistance in Libya, and the international humanitarian organizations declared themselves ready to pour to them directly and immediately via the bottom of common assistance set up in Libya, independently of the legal “justificafion” civil Libyan woman judged by all the negotiators like unacceptable.

This friendly solution with the families precipitates the things. The French president gives a personal invitation to the emir of the Qatar to the military ceremonies of the French national festival on the Fields-Élysées on July 14th. No indication is given to the press concerning the nature of the diplomatic or commercial negociations which take place this day. The French president admittedly already dispatched on July 12th his wife like personal emissary in Libya to obtain the leniency of the Libyan president, and this one returns and holds it informed conditions wanted for the Libyan president.

At the time of its visit to the Bulgarian prisoners, the first rams their announced the good news: it succeeded in obtaining the support of the Libyan government to help to find a solution directly with the Libyan families, which would not oppose their release any more provided that the rules of the Islamic law are strictly observed. Without being able to say to them when such a solution would succeed, it assure them with them and their families and supports Bulgarian that all would be done so that this solution makes it possible to close the disastrous legal procedure of which they were the object. This intervention initially irritates the emissary of the European Union which were not held immédaitement informed of the secret mission of the first French lady, whereas they negotiated since years jointly with the Council of Europe (before the accession of Bulgaria to the Union). However, Bulgarian association “You are not alone” of support for the nurses (relayed by the major part of the initiating Bulgarian press of this association) adheres completely to this initiative, that the French president had promised with his president in December 2006 at the time of the French presidential campaign. The very same day, association publishes a letter of support without reserve for this French intervention, then immediately supported by the Bulgarian authorities. Few criticisms European die out at once not to compromise the chances of a fast payment after years of uncertainty and concern on the fate of the Bulgarian prisoners.

However, the Libyan presidency still insisted to obtain additional repairs and advantages political to obtain a measurement of leniency on behalf of Libyan justice civil, which was firmly denounced by the European negotiators as an unacceptable “blackmail” because the required “compensations” were it under the threat of an immediately applicable capital punishment by the decision of the Libyan civil court, and only to the direct profit of the State or of commercial organizations Libyan and not of the only victims' families concerned in the lawsuits (what is completely contrary with the spirit of the Islamic law which prohibits any profit in these repairs), and while thus making they threatened to cancel the recourse with the Islamic law and thus to make apply the civil sentence of dead in spite of the agreement found with the Libyan families. These new Libyan requests are then denounced by the Bulgarian association of defense which records the ambitions economic and political Libyan and the inconsistency of the promises of the authorities jamahyriennes.

Libyan grace, sorrows commuted to life imprisonment and requests for extraditions

Families give up to ask capital punishment for presumed authors of crimes against sum of million of dollars by victim (460 on the whole including 56 deceased) which is versed before the decision of the Superior council of the judicial bodies, ten times less than what had been requested from the beginning (but same families had declared that this amount initial remained negotiable provided that one wants to hear them well and look after their children the most reached in the European hospitals, which was made for several hundreds of them, including 80 in France, and close to as much neat in Switzerland and Italy). The money comes from funds supplied with Bulgaria, the European Union, the United States and the many organizations of support for the prisoners, like by Libya (via an humanitarian organization directed by the brother of the Libyan president).

Moreover, condemned make a “request for forgiveness and leniency” deposited in the presence of ambassadors of European countries. It would be accompanied by a “engagement to guarantee that the six prisoners would not engage of continuation against the Libyan State.”

July 19th, the Bulgaria officially required of Libya to authorize the transfer to Sofia of the five nurses and the doctor Bulgarian. Under the international pressures, the Libyan president grants leniency and makes commute the judgment with death in prison with life, which confirms then the Superior council of the judicial bodies which had however confirmed the judgments definitively a few days before. Technically, this measurement does not call into question the culpability of blamed and their judgments but changes the nature of the inflicted sorrows, in accordance with the wishes of the Libyan families.

July 22nd, the woman of the French president Cécilia Sarkozy and her general secretary in the Elysium accompany the European police chief with the Foreign relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner which go to Libya in “humane visit” on the French presidential aircraft, in order to meet the 6 prisoners. But their intention is to do everything now to obtain the expulsion or the extradition of the 6 Bulgarian prisoners (including the Palestinian doctor which obtained this nationality at the time of the négocations). Libya expected the negotiation directly by the French president (who would have come in official visit), but this last declared itself laid out little to go itself to Libya for that, even if it followed the file very directly. It makes even a condition of it: no the official visit as long as the question of the release of the Bulgarian medical personnel is not settled.

Quite to the contrary, the French president (who currently militates for a reinforced partnership of the European Union with a future “Union of the Mediterranean”) took care well not to visit Libya after his visits in Morocco, in Algeria and Tunisia. July 23rd, it confirmed its intention not to yield to insistence and the bargaining Libyans, and not to go there directly in official visit, reason for which it dispatched there only his wife and her general secretary of the Elysium (to assist it in its local steps with representing European).

But the Libyan president still insists on July 23rd to obtain additional “compensations” (a highway connecting Tunisia to Egypt, a railway towards the south of the country, a new station in Tripoli, a privileged partnership with the European Union, an development assistance, assistances for archaeological excavations, the development of tourist areas…) what denounces the European political authorities like an unacceptable “blackmail”, of which entire amount would border several billion euro (without counting the commercial advantage that would get in Libya still subjected to an international embargo following its compromising in terrorism, which would be seen like infâmant for the European victims of this terrorism, and even particularly unjust compared to other States of the Maghreb which make this request for partnership reinforced since with the years but which granted many efforts to reach that point), where the bottom of direct compensation for the victims would receive as well as possible from it only one half-milliard (not included/understood the additional amounts which could have been invested in private humanitarian aid, today largely suspended or decreased, whatever is the origin, even that of the Arab countries and Islamic humanitarian organizations of the fact even of the Libyan legal action since 8 years against the condemned nurses and doctors).

There still, the Bulgarian association of defense sends and publishes a cordial letter of support for the first French lady, and denounces the last Libyan requests which leave the agreement obtained with the Libyan families and the promises made by the Libyan government support this amicable settlement. These additional requests appear unworthy even for the victims' families concerned in death of the children and who had accepted financial arrangement according to the Islamic law, and were satisfied resumption of essential humane medical help in Libya for the heavy treatment against the HIV of contaminated children and the medical security of the Libyan hospitals wanted by all. What confirms the Libyan association of defense of the families of contaminated children (chaired by the son of the Libyan president) who hold above all with the promise of care in Europe and the medical assistance that the financial agreement obtained would make possible.

These requests are moreover considered precipitated because the Libyan government seeks to thus obtain under the threat part of its former requests for the standardization negotiated (independently of this business) with the European Union within the framework of the “Process of Barcelona”, which envisaged a collaboration with a “Mediterranean Union and Arabic” (UMA) of which Libya should form part in the long term, negotiations during which the European Union pointed out that was not to be done without condition, this including the more general resolution of the problems involved in the human rights in Libya, the devolution of the capacities, the European application relating to itabolition of the capital punishment in Libya (still applied for the crimes, but difficult to abolish before a long run), then allowing the participation of the European Union the development of road and railway communications with the South of Libya and the adjoining countries (Niger, Chad, Sudan), as well as the total collaboration of Libya in the fight against terrorism (including the total acceptance of the judgment of the Court of Lockerby relating to the attacks against European planes, and the payment of the allowances which had by it), the maintenance of peace and stability in the area. The European Union as recalled during this process as it could not support the application to join of Libya to OMC without adhering fully to the international treaties.

Free-European mediation for the release of condemned

July 24th, 2007, after 8 long years of procedures, the French negociations very largely supported by Bulgaria and all the other countries of the European Union made it possible to obtain the release of the 5 Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor. With 6:29 CEST (summer-time of Paris, UTC+02), they took seat with representing European commission, the woman of the French President, and with Claude Guéant, the general secretary of the Elysium on the French presidential aircraft, bound for Sofia, and with some family members of the prisoners.

Legally, the 6 prisoners were always condemned and only extradited. On their arrival with Sofia, they will be placed in observation in a residence of the Bulgarian presidency to receive there care and examinations of health. With 8:45 CEST, whereas they are acclaimed with airport and come hardly to re-examine their families (including that of the doctor of Palestinian origin, whose family had had précipitemment to flee Libya, to find refuge with the Netherlands, following a heinous press campaign which had denounced them them also like “assassins of innocent children”), the Bulgarian president their fact of arriving a message which grants officially the presidential pardon to them, which immediately cancels the execution of the sorrows infâmantes to which they remained still theoretically subjected following their extradition.

The 6 condemned are thus today completely free, the families of the contaminated Libyan children obtained repair well according to the applicable Islamic law in Libya via the installation of the bottom of compensation and the medical assistance obtained, however, Libya considers that no Libyan money was given to the families of the victims. According to the European Union, the Council of Europe and Bulgaria, they were always regarded as innocent, but the Bulgarian presidential pardon is not enough to raise their culpability always recognized legally by the Libyan judgment. A Bulgarian court order could rehabilitate later on condemned (at least in Europe).

However, the Libyan civil judgments were not cancelled yet, in spite of the effective application of the Islamic law which should have extinguished these civil judgments infâmantes. That could make still possible an international civil legal action against the Libyan State (by the 6 released prisoners or the Libyan families contaminated children) without calling into question the payments to the bottom of compensation for the families according to the Islamic law, the more so as exists still pressures against the Libyan families to confiscate or divert part of the funds to them which they could obtain (funds which are also intended to help with the care of the still alive children contaminated in the Libyan hospitals, whereas the Libyan State still did not take the medical measurements adapted against the possible sources of contamination).

The things negotiated during this mediation remained secret, but certain observers considered that transfer concomitant could have been the object of this mediation.

Thus, the Fondation Kadhafi paid money with the families of the contaminated Libyan children. This money will be refunded by the international Fonds of Benghazi, the European Union went Caution.

Benita Ferrero-Waldner, Commissaire European with the foreign relations, and Abdelati Al-Obeidi, Libyan Secretary of State to the European businesses, signed a signed memorandum published Brussels, in which the European commission “engages so that the Funds international of Benghazi transfers with the Development funds economic and social Libyan the sums collected within the framework of the agreement of financing of July 15th, 2007, whose amount rises to 598 million Libyan dinars” . The committed sums are of 335 million euros, that is to say 461 million dollars étasuniens.

This transaction was mediatized at the same time by Nicolas Sarkozy and Abdelrahman Chalgham which considered for one that “neither Europe nor France” had “poured the least financial contribution in Libya” , and for the other that “Everyone paid the Funds, including the European Union and France. They covered the sums paid with the families and even more” .

Consequences and reactions after the release

The question of the effective payment of these funds to the Libyan families (or in the programs of medical assistance humane, according to the requests made by each Libyan family of ill child or deceased) remains still outstanding (and the European negotiators will take care that this money is not diverted).

Nicolas Sarkozy, in a press conference held in the Elysium, in company of Bernard Kouchner (Foreign Minister and very concerned as a former president of medical humanitarian organization, but which was expressed very little), taken again on the principal television channels and radios French-speaking or European, announced that the final mediation of the “friendly” government of the Qatar was “determining” to find a conclusion happy with this negotiation, in the night from July 23rd to 24th. The nature of the mediation of Qatar was not specified by the French president, who wished to let the “government qatarien ” (instead of qatari) “express itself on this subject” when it wishes it.

He also insisted on the fact that France, Bulgaria, or the European Union would not pour an euro directly in Libya, apart from the framework of the financial agreement occurred with the Libyan families a few days earlier.

He thanked the Libyan president Mouammar Kadhafi to have accepted and have made possible this release, after having confirmed that it had acted with the full support of all the countries which could help it to find one to see of exit “without offending anybody”, and which its intervention was made with the complete agreement of the Bulgarian government, and of the European representatives. He also cordially congratulated his wife in this delicate humane mission, because she had easily been able to meet all the interlocutors, as well as the prisoners themselves.

He has specified that the first nobody released in the night (juridically expelled by Libya) and to have joined the French presidential plane was the Bulgarian doctor, husband of one of the condemned nurses and who itself had been condemned to 4 years of prison (which he carried out in Libya, on the less serious reason for importation of foreign currencies whereas he intended to use this money for the release of his wife) before being assigned with permanent residence in the Bulgarian embassy in Libya, where he lived for several years fault of being able to obtain a Visa of exit. It was joined there early in the morning by the 6 condemned (juridically extradited of Libya in Bulgaria at the request of Bulgarian justice). He also recalled that the Bulgarian president grâcié the 6 condemned at once as of their arrival on the Bulgarian ground.

He also specifies that this happy conclusion should finally make it possible to restore normal official relations with Libya, and that he did not see in what that should now prevent France from officially going there to negotiate agreements whereas other countries have been also present there officially for eight years. (The General secretary of the Elysium had specified a little before that the French president would go well to Libya in the next days.)

Libyan reactions

Libya protested on Wednesday, July 25 against the grace granted to the Bulgarian nurses and to the doctor of Palestinian origin.

The Libyan Minister for the Foreign affairs, Abdelrahman Chalgham declared that the prisoners were to be given as of their arrival with a penitentiary establishment and not released in a festive and illegal way . On his side the Prime Minister Baghdadi Mahmoudi affirmed that Sofia violated the legal procedures as regards extradition, envisaged by the international law and the legal agreement of mutual aid signed between the two countries in 1984.

Testimony of the nurses and the doctor on their detention conditions

The Palestinian doctor, Achraf Hajouj, declare that locked up the first days in a part with three dogs, which received the order to attack me. (…) One of the things that they made me is to roll up a wire around my penis and to draw me through the room. I howled. The worst, it was the machine to be tortured with electricity. They put a wire on a finger, and the other on my ears or my genitals. (…) Sometimes, I was tortured in the same part the nurses. I was naked in front of them, and they with half naked. I have shame to say what they did to the women. They were violated.

Saïf Al-Islam Kadhafi affirms on August 9th, 2007 that the Bulgarian nurses were tortured: They were tortured with electricity and one threatened them to be caught some with their family. But most of what the doctor of Palestinian origin affirmed is a pure lie

Reactions of the civil society

Press conference in Paris

June 12th, 2006, takes care of the second audience of the new lawsuit, at the house of Radio France was held a press conference which joined together P R Luc Montagnier the expert internationally recognized in the modes of contaminiation by the HIV and the AIDS, Yves Repiquet the Barristers president about the lawyers of Paris, Main Emmanuel Altit one of the Lawyers without Borders which defend the nurses in Tripoli, Christine Bruneau the president of Femmes of tomorrow, Francoise Geng the federal secretary of CGT health, Alain Tourret the vice president of the District council of Basse-Normandie and Michel Taube the founder and spokesperson of Ensemble against the capital punishment. The Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and Patrick Pelloux were excused. The free-Bulgarian singer Sylvie Vartan was on line by telephone from California.

All called with the handing-over in freedom of the Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor during the behavior of this new lawsuit which in fact takes again the instruction at its beginning since the preceding judgment of condemnation with the capital punishment at summer broken on December 25th, 2005.

The call of the 114 prizes winner Nobel

114 Nobel prizes winner in sciences Co-signed on November 9th, 2006 an open letter, published in the scientific newspaper Nature , with the Libyan leader Muammar Khaddafi calling it with a lawsuit right.

Governmental organizations

Amnesty International condemned the decision taken by a Libyan court on December 19th, 2006 to condemn to dead the accused.

The Bulgarian organizations also diffused and sold a symbol of support, a ribbon with the Bulgarian colors raising the message “You are not alone. ” (written in English and Bulgarian). This ribbon was raised on the costumes of official Bulgarian and many people of the public at the time of the press conference given to the international airport of Sofia at the time of the arrival of the prisoners released by Libya on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 and brought back early the morning on the French presidential aircraft.

Diplomatic interventions and operations managers

Cécilia Sarkozy went secretly to Tripoli with a person in charge of the Elysium, on July 12th, 2007, to visit the prisoners, then with Benghazi to see the families of the children contaminated by the virus of the AIDS. It also met the colonel Mouammar Kadhafi, auprès of which it pled, with Claude Guéant, the cause of the nurses and the doctor. “It was not categorical in its answer, but I repeat it, one can legitimately hope.”

It is only at the time of its second visits on July 22nd, invested of a “humane” mission held officially by the French president, and accompanied by the Police chief European giving the official support of all the European Union, and a secretary elected by the Elysium able to negotiate diplomatically with other Arab States (via the French embassies or the collaboration of the other European diplomatic services) for the final mediation, which it could obtain win on the fate of the Bulgarian nurses and the doctor.

One currently does not know which was the nature of the mediation obtained of Qatar (the French President only speaks “about a very generous gesture humane”), nor where and by which it was negotiated (in Paris or Tripoli or in one of the French embassies). However, it is noted that the emir of Qatar was the special guest of the president of the Republic at the time of the military ceremonies of the national festival on July 14th.

The negociations would have related to contracts of armaments, the release of a Libyan imprisoned since 2001 in Glasgow, in Scotland, as well as a power station électriqueet a contract of gas prospection of 900 million dollars.

The cover by the international press

The international press is interested little in the lawsuit, except in France and Bulgaria where the press is made echo of their situation, until those are condemned to died at the time of the first lawsuit.

The majority of the articles are unanimous on the fact that the defendants are used as scapegoats with the Libyan capacity which let degrade the conditions of hygiene, which because the epidemic (and the Libyan health authorities made little to prevent the contaminations by the HIV at the time of the blood transfusions and collections of blood before the business does not burst in 1998 following the complaints of the families and the first false charges of the Libyan capacity which initially showed them to be agents of Israeli Mossad and the CIA before retracting and modifying the criminal charges).

The Libyan press and the majority of the Arab press supporting the official declarations affirmed at the beginning that the lawsuit is right because of the first charges carried, but little of these media retracted while at the same time the Libyan legal authority gave up the initial loads and agreed to remake the lawsuit. The cover in the Bulgarian press is very important and unanimous (and the French press which was mobilized during the launching of the second lawsuit, and which recalled the intolerable situation of the Bulgarian personnel to the candidates with the French presidential election): the judgments are qualified the absurd ones, even if it were clear that the situation of the many contaminated children (of which around fifty died) could not be been unaware of.

In France, one remembers indeed the long lawsuit of the blood contaminated against the State; humanitarian associations concerned, just like the the World Health Organization in the fight against the Sida and helps it with the patients, pointed out well the essential role and the importance of the public health authorities in the fight against this world plague, and which it was not used for nothing to indicate of the medical personnel if those were deprived of methods of effective control of the high-risk medical acts like the transfusion blood and the use of medical instruments like the materials of injection.

A great number of humanitarian associations working in the medical environment, but also in the protection of the human rights firmly condemned this false lawsuit carried out in Libya and mobilized the largest qualified celebrities of the medical world in the fight against AIDS (like professor Montanier) and condemned since always the stigmatization from abroad in the propagation of the disease.

But it is true that the fate of the Bulgarian prisoners in Libya since 1999, found during the most 8 years much less echo than the remainder of the international situation in the Middle East, especially since the attacks of September 11th, 2001, then the second war in Iraq, the fate of the Palestinians during the looping of the territories by Israel, the Palestinian interior fights following the death of president Arafat, the political assassinations in Lebanon where Syria was implied before having to withdraw itself some vis-a-vis the mass demonstrations, then the military intervention of Israel in Lebanon, the development of international terrorism. Or even still in Europe, with the evolution of the Community institutions, the adoption of the Euro, the European draft treaty, the adhesion of ten new countries, then in at the end of 2006 that of Bulgaria with Romania, questions about the accession of Turkey, or even still the situation in Darfur. The topicality was rich in events, relating to million people, and well little case was done fate a handle the Bulgarian ones in Libya, a still stable zone of the Middle East.

It is this recent adhesion of Bulgaria to the European Union, and the so recent launching of the international negotiations on Darfur (where Libya could play a stabilizing part or as intermediate with peace negotiations) as well as the pronunciation of the death penalty in Libya (abolished everywhere in Europe) which reinforced Community cohesion to directly help Bulgaria (which hitherto missed effective means to negotiate, since various European emissary were not recognized by Libya like abilities to intervene for the Bulgarian ones) to obtain the release of the Bulgarian prisoners in a total negotiation implying all the countries of the European Union, consequently supported more openly by the United States (which did not want or could deal of them directly with fear of froisser the Arab Libya and countries in what they could regard as an interior legal affair with an Arab country).

See too

References

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