HIV Nurses

[Kiyoodle the Gambrinous]

You've probably all heard about this case...

Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were held in jail in Libya since 1999 for infecting more than 400 of Libyan children with HIV, out of which 56 has already died. December 2006, all six are sentenced to death for intentional infection of the children as a part of an experiment to find a cure for AIDS (2001, two of the nurses, on whose confessions prosecutors based the charges, testify that their statements were extracted by torture. All six plead not guilty. 2005 a retrial took place after the original conviction sentencing them to death was overturned by appeal).

July 17, 2007, the Libyan Supreme Court uphold the Death peanalty, but it is commuted to life sentence, after the families get several millions from the EU and drop the demands for death sentence.

July 22, 2007, European Union commissioner for foreign affairs, Benita Ferrero-Waldner and French first lady Cecilia Sarkozy arrive in Libya to negotiate the medics' release.

July 24, 2007, all six arrive in Bulgarian custody and are pardonned by the Bulgaria's president...

here's a news article about it: here

There are a few points in all this that I really don't like:

1. EU pays a lot of money as compensation deal with the victim's families, the death sentence is changed into life in prison.
2. EU promises more money and cooperation with Libya, sign a few treaties ( EU assistance programs for Libyan trade and infrastructure, with visas, and in preserving Libya's rich archaeological heritage, and promise of continued medical support for the infected children) with the same, the six are allowed to be transferred to Bulgaria.
3. The Bulgarian president pardons six people that have probably killed 56 and more or less "sentenced" to death more than 400 innocent children.

I have no problem with the EU giving money to a third world country, which Libiya is (although I don't like Kaddafi, he has made a lot of effort lately to improve foreign realtions and to improve the life in his country), the victims' families deserve the money, and it's good that the EU tries to improve the lives of the needy.

But I find it worrying that a few bucks make everything go away... It's just not right.


(and honestly, I don't think the six should have been pardonned. Maybe they haven't infected the children, maybe they have... But I think it's a slap in the face to the families, whose children have been infected. I think all six of them should have remained in prison in Bulgaria, for at least a part of their life sentence...)

[anthrobabe]

this is just painful

the idea of doctors and nurses trampling on their vow(stated or implicit) to serve human kind and alleviate suffering is just sorrowful.

if by chance they are truly innocent then I'm better-- but we will never truly know now.

Oh the dirty grease that money provides to those who are of dubious humanity.

[Swatopluk]

I can't say either, whether they were guilty or just scapegoats. But we should not forget that they already sat 8 years on death row. I assume that Libyan prisons are not actually luxxury hotels.
But I agree that the least that should have been done is an independent investigation into the alleged crimes before letting them go free (Bulgarian prisons are probably no holiday trip either though*).

*OK, there are some holiday trips of the less than comfortable kind...