PHR Library

May 31, 2005

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Death Sentence Appeal Postponed in Libya

Bulgarian Nurses and Palestinian Physician Must Wait Until November 15 for Supreme Court Hearing

Physicians for Human Rights has issued the following statement about the postponed appeal of five Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian physician facing the death penalty after being accused of intentionally infecting more than 400 children in Libya with the HIV virus:

“We are disappointed to learn that the Libyan Supreme Court has delayed an opportunity to release the nurses and physician accused of intentionally infecting children with HIV. This is especially troubling in light of the medics’ allegations that their confessions were extracted under torture. These medics have already served five and half years in prison. They were arrested in 1999 and not tried until 2004. The announcement postponing the court ruling until November 15 means six more months of confinement for the medics.

It is important that the Libyan justice system address this case carefully and deliberately. Physicians for Human Rights continues to call for the prompt release of the international medics on human rights and humanitarian grounds. Physicians for Human Rights also urges the international community to do everything it can to support the children who were infected with the HIV virus at al-Fateh Children’s Hospital in Benghazi as well as their families.”

The nurses and physician were sentenced to death in May 2004 on charges of intentionally infecting 426 children with HIV at al-Fateh Children’s Hospital in Benghazi. Nine Libyan police officers and a physician, accused of raping and torturing the nurses to extract false confessions, are slated to go on trial in Tripoli on June 7.

Over the past few years, nearly 40 of the children have died of AIDS. They are now reportedly receiving state-of-the-art medical care in a collaborative project involving the Benghazi Government and a US-based medical institution as well as additional assistance from the European Union. Unsafe medical practices, thought to have caused the infections, have been a hallmark of the global AIDS epidemic, and there have been previous tragic cases of accidental infection, most notably of some 5,000 Romanian orphans in the 1980s. Also in the 1980s, there were cases of Americans receiving blood transfusions in the US who were infected with HIV due to an unsafe blood supply. In the mid-1990s, as many as one million people were infected with the AIDS virus in rural China due to unsafe blood collection practices.

Some analysts believe that as many as 500,000 infections per year worldwide are caused by unclean needles and other unsafe medical practices. "The infection of over 400 children with HIV is a terrible situation, yet many countries struggle to maintain safe health care and prevent this type of accidental HIV infection,“ says PHR deputy director Susannah Sirkin. PHR has written a report on the issue of medical safety, which is a problem in many countries (see HIV Transmission in Health Care Settings).

Professor Luc Montagnier, a co-discoverer of the virus that causes AIDS, and Italian microbiologist Vittorio Colizzi sampled viruses from the infected children in 2004 and determined that many of the children had been infected with HIV before the arrival of the foreign nurses and doctor in 1998. Further, the presence of co-contaminants Hepatitis B and C suggests that the victims had been infected by unsanitary conditions at the hospital rather than by any deliberate action.

In May 2004, dozens of the world's leading virologists and AIDS doctors sent an open letter, organized by PHR, to Colonel Gaddafi protesting the death sentence of the health professionals. Signers included both co-discoverers of HIV, Dr. Montagnier and Dr. Robert Gallo, as well as virologist Dr. Ashley Haase, chair of the University of Minnesota’s Department of Microbiology.  

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) mobilizes the health professions to advance the health and dignity of all people by protecting human rights. As a founding member of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, PHR shared the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize.