Trading Lives for Money: Libya's HIV Scandal by Vasil Zlatev

How much does a human life cost? Most would say it is invaluable. However, that is not Muammar Gaddafi’s answer to this question. He would say that a human life costs a certain amount of money. Consider the following story.

On February 9, 1999 five Bulgarian nurses, a Bulgarian doctor, and a Palestinian doctor were accused of infecting 393 Libyan children with HIV. This accusation is rather dubious because the evidence presented by the Libyan prosecutors is contradictory. That is why the European Union, USA, and organizations such as Amnesty International have all condemned the trial and demanded the liberation of the accused medical workers. Now, eight years later, the five nurses and the Palestinian doctor are still in custody and have been sentenced to death.

It all began in October 1998, when two children who were treated at the Al Fatih Children’s Hospital in Benghazi, Libya were diagnosed with AIDS. The families of the infected children were eager to find the culprits who caused that tragedy and subsequently made an appeal to Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi. Consequently, a hunt for the culprits was initiated. The Palestinian doctor Dr Ashraf al-Hadjudj and the six Bulgarians, from the 23 who were arrested at first, Nassya Nenova, Valya Cherveniashka, Valentina Siropulo, Snejana Dimitrova, Christiana Vulcheva and her husband Dr Zdravko Georgiev were kept in prison. Moreover, Libya interpreted the infections as a plot against Libya initiated by the CIA and Mossad with the six Bulgarians and the Palestinian doctor as secret agents of the two agencies.

The nurses and the two doctors were forced to confess that they have deliberately infected 393 children with HIV, under the duress of torture. The tortures were so intense that one of the nurses, Nassya Nenova, attempted a suicide.

One Bulgarian, Smilian Tachev—who was jailed for 174 days on unrelated charges—was a witness of the tortures. He recalls: “The nurses were beaten with many-stranded wire, for a long time and painfully. Then they were made to run, crawl, stand on one leg with their hands stretched up. When they collapsed totally, they were dragged somewhere and brought back in a helpless state.” Tachev adds that he witnessed the use of probes to force unidentified objects down the women’s throats, electricity applied on their bodies, and dogs set loose upon the screaming victims.

All these actions are prohibited by the Libyan law. The Libyan law safeguards respect for the rights of detainees upon detention and testimony, and if these rights are violated, the charges may be nullified. Libya has also signed the UN Convention against Torture which not only prohibits torture, but also “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.”

The evidence on which the argument of the prosecution rests is the claim that blood banks with HIV-infected blood in them were found in the apartment of Christiana Vulcheva, the alleged organizer of the infection. The evidence that the prosecution presents, however, is so dubious and untrustworthy that it cannot be taken for granted. First, the confessions of the accused were made as a result of 90-days of torture. The Benghazi Criminal Court, however, refused to acknowledge that the accused were tortured despite the fact that the Libyan People’s Court has accepted that the medical workers were tormented and that there was not enough evidence to prove that they have infected the children, which automatically nullifies the confessions of the six. On the other hand, the Benghazi Criminal Court sentenced the five Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor to death on the basis of one and the same evidence. In that way, the rulings of the two institutions totally contradict with each other, which is another reason to question the validity of the Benghazi Criminal Court’s verdict.

The defense of the medical workers rejected all claims of the prosecution. As far as the blood banks are concerned, they were found in Christiana Vulcheva’s apartment after a perquisition on which she was not present, which is illegal according to Libyan laws. That means that the blood banks might have been deliberately placed in the apartment of Christiana Vulcheva. In addition, the prosecution never presented the blood banks with infected blood to the court despite the fact that the defense requested them. Isn’t it strange the main evidence in a trial was never presented to the court? Another strange fact is that the date of the perquisition in Christiana Vulcheva’s apartment is in April 1999, while according to the official documents, the examinations of the blood banks found in her apartment were conducted on February 2 and February 15, 1999. How can someone examine something that has not been found yet? So, if the Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor are innocent, how did the infection occur? Let’s see what some of the most famous AIDS specialists say on the topic.

Prof Luc Perrin, in whose hospital in Switzerland some of the infected children have been treated, has examined 185 of them and concludes that in many the infection is actually older than a year. Prof Perrin comments: “I can tell for sure that the HIV infection occurred before September, 1997.” Nassya Nenova, Valentina Siropulu and Valya Cherveniashka started working in the Al Fatih Children’s Hospital on February 17, 1998, and the Palestinian doctor Dr Ashraf al-Hadjudj—on August 1, 1998. The “organizer” of the group Christiana Vulcheva has never worked in Al Fatih Children’s Hospital.

According to Prof Perrin the AIDS outbreak occurred because of poor hygiene in the hospital. Prof Perrin explains: “If a single source of contaminated blood had caused the HIV outbreak, all the children would be infected by the same hepatitis C subtype. What we observed can instead be explained by the reuse of syringes or poor sterilization procedures.”

The opinions of Prof Luc Montagnier, the co-discoverer of AIDS, and of Professor Vittorio Colizzi, in whose hospital some of the children were treated, coincided with that of Professor Perrin. Prof Montagnier and Prof Colizzi examined separately the HIV outbreak in Al Fatih Children’s Hospital, but they reached to one and the same conclusion. The Libyan court refused to acknowledge the reports of the three professors and even added their names in the list of alleged criminals.

The logical question follows: “Why did Libya sentence six medical workers, who are apparently innocent, to death?” There are a couple of possible explanations. Sadly, they are all connected with either money or political power.

Libya had suffered for years from the embargo imposed on it after the Lockerbie incident in which a Libyan intelligence officer was convicted of aiding a terrorist plot that resulted in the explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. The incident led to international isolation and economic problems for Libya. It is likely that insufficient funds for healthcare caused the reuse of syringes in Libyan hospitals and the Libyan state needs funding in order to better the condition of healthcare.

Here is where the “money reason” comes. The parents’ organization of the infected children demands that Bulgaria pay 10 million Euros to the families of each infected child. If Bulgaria does that, the Bulgarian nurses will be liberated. The sum 10 million Euros is not picked by chance. It is connected with the sum that Libya paid as reparations after the Lockerbie case; that is clearly an attempt from the Libyan side to regain this money.

But why were citizens of Bulgaria and Palestine accused specifically? The first reason is again connected with money. Libya has to pay a debt of $290 million to Bulgaria. Libya proposed liberating the Bulgarian nurses in exchange of not paying its debt to Bulgaria. Moreover, in 1998 Bulgaria was not member of NATO nor the European Union, so it didn’t have much political influence. As for the Palestinian doctor, he might have been picked for several reasons. First, he is a Muslim, which rejects the possibility of a religious conflict in the trial. Second, by selecting a Palestinian, Libya maybe trying to prove that its claims are not a matter of money or power, but justice insofar as Libya has had close relationships with some Palestinian groups. And finally, the international relations’ system is based on state-state interactions, and since Palestine is not an official state, it cannot count on broad international support.

Last, but not least is Muammar Gaddafi’s desire not to degrade his image of a leader. If he confesses that the HIV outbreak was caused because of poor hygiene, he undermines his own authority. Furthermore, Benghazi, where Al Fatih Children’s Hospital is located, has long been a place with relative independence and strong tribal chiefs, who are not that submissive to Gaddafi. In fact, some of these chiefs tried to initiate a coup d’etat against him in the past.

To sum up, with the trial against the Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor, Libya is trying to fix the state’s economic deficit and to regain its role on the international scene after the embargo imposed on the country. Libya hopes to receive some money and after releasing the six accused medical workers (because I doubt that Libya will actually kill them), it will “prove” to the world that Libya is a fair and just country. But should that be achieved after ruining the lives of innocents? Should that be achieved after ugly bargaining for money in exchange for human lives? Should people be tortured and treated like animals? Muammar Gaddafi seems to have no qualms about these transgressions. Meanwhile, the innocent medical workers are wondering everyday whether they will see their countries and relatives again and even whether they will see the sun at the next day.