In the unfinished trial against the Bulgarian medics and a Palestinian doctor in Libya five Bulgarian nurses (Kristiyana Valtcheva , Nasya Nenova , Valentina Siropulo , Valya Chervenyashka and Snezhana Dimitrova ) as well as one Palestinian doctor (Ashraf al-Hajuj ) have been accused of:

• committing actions on the territory of Libya which led to uncontrolled killing of people in an attempt on the state's security (punishable with death)
• participating in a conspiracy and team negotiation for commission of a murder;
• causing an epidemic through injecting 393 children with HIV in the children’s hospital Al-Fatih in Benghazi (punishable with death);
• acting contrary to Libyan standards and traditions (including usage of alcohol)

The nurses and Ashraf al-Hadjudj arrived in Libya in 1998 to treat pediatric patients. A Bulgarian, doctor Zdravko Georgiev , is also accused in this trial, although of lesser crimes (illegal transactions with foreign exchange). Dr. Georgiev went to Libya to see his wife Kristiyana Valtcheva who had been detained; subsequently he was detained and tried, too. Georgiev was sentenced to 4 years and he served more than that before he was released from prison, but he is still in Libya, awaiting for an exit visa.

Cases

Case 44/1999 of People's Court of Libya

(February 7, 2000 - February 17, 2002)

The case began without Bulgaria being notified. It was suspended because the Court did not see any evidence for the accusation of conspiracy against the country. The judge made a statement saying that the People's Court of Libya was incompetent with regard to the case. The People's Court of Libya is the lowest court in the three-level Libyan court system.

• The confessions of part of the medics and the contention of the Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi that the accused worked as CIA and Mossad agents are considered to be the basis of the case.
• The Bulgarian medics declared during the case that the confessions were obtained through torture. Qaddafi's thesis was rejected as absurd by both the international press and the experts.
• A few months after the beginning of the case, lawyers Vladimir Sheitanov and Osman Bizanti appealed to the court demanding that the detention measure be altered because of the Bulgarians' physical and mental state. Sheitanov said that the almost 2 year preliminary detention was incompatible with the principle of "innocent until guilty proven ".
• The Libyan officers who obtained confessions from the medics admitted that the medics had been tortured into confessing.

Case 213/2002 of the Criminal Court in Benghazi

(July 8, 2003 - 2004)

• Libya withdrew its accusation of participation in a CIA/Mossad conspiracy and made new accusations of illegal drug experiments and of contamination with HIV mutations.

• In a court session, two experts, Luc Montagnier (discoverer of the HIV virus) and Vittorio Colizzi, said that the epidemic at Al-Fatih resulted from poor hygiene and that the infection began spreading in 1997, a year before the accused started working there.

Case 607/2003 of the Criminal Court in Benghazi

(200? - May 6 2004)

The Criminal Court sentenced Kristiyana Valtcheva , Nasya Nenova , Valentina Siropulo , Valya Chervenyashka , Snezhana Dimitrova and Ashraf al-Hajuj to death by firing squad for deliberately infecting more than 400 Libyan children with HIV. Kristiyana Valtcheva and Zdravko Georgiev were sentenced to 4 years' imprisonment and a fine on the charge of making illegal transactions with foreign exchange. Under the civil suit, the court obliged Ashraf al-Hajuj, Kristiyana Valtcheva and Nasya Nenova to pay compensations to the infected children's parents. Motivated complaints against the court's decision were lodged on July 5 2004.

• In January 2004, the European Union recommended that Libya withdraw its charges. The letter was delivered by the ambassadors of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.
• Amnesty International, the American Department of State, and other state and international organizations expressed their concern with the course of the trial.
• The Government of Bulgaria, which lobbied for the release of the defendants, defined the verdict as unjust and absurd.

Case of the Supreme Court in Tripoli

The Libyan Supreme Court heard the appeal of the cases beginning on March 29, 2005. On March 30, prosecutors urged the court to revoke the death sentences and remand the case to the lower courts for retrial. Under Libyan law, the court cannot accept any new evidence, although the Bulgarian party argued that there had been wrongly interpreted evidence during the court sessions so far.

Foreign policy repercussions

On April 12, 2005, reports surfaced that Libya was considering a trade embargo with Bulgaria for what the Libyan government termed Bulgaria's failure to prevent the HIV outbreak. Although the case has resulted in tense diplomatic negotiations in the past, this move is considered an unexpected escalation by Libya.

External links

• The Bulgarian Medics Solidarity Project (Bulgarian point of view)
• Quiet diplomacy is not enough, an article by the British Medical Journal.
• Complete chronology of the trials

• The letter from Luc Montagnier to Muammar al-Qaddafi after the death sentence (original, in French)
• Interview with the professor Luc Montagnier (in French)
• European parliament's rapport about human rights in Libya (in French, PDF format, 32 KB)
• Amnesty International's rapport about human rights in Libya