Bulgarian nurses home after eight-year ordeal
Wednesday, 25 July 2007
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The long and ugly saga of the Bulgarian nurses accused of poisoning Libyan children came to a sudden end yesterday with the nurses - along with their Palestinian colleague, who was last month given Bulgarian citizenship - receiving a hero's welcome in Sofia.
Eight years ago the five nurses and the trainee doctor were working at a hospital in Benghazi, Libya's second biggest city, and were accused of deliberately infecting 426 children under treatment there with HIV.
Kristiana Valcheva, 48, one of the five nurses, said: "I still can't believe that I am standing on Bulgarian soil. We were told the news at 4 o'clock in the morning and we left the jail at quarter to six to board the plane. We were afraid even to say aloud what we dreamed about. I want my life to return to what it was before all this happened."
"I waited so long for this moment," said Snezhana Dimitrova as she fell into the arms of emotional relatives.
The Libyan dictator, Col Muammar Gaddafi, intimated that the infections were the result of a diabolical plot by Israel's Mossad and the CIA. The medics confessed under torture and in two separate trials were found guilty and sentenced to death. Twice those verdicts were confirmed by the Libya's Supreme Court.
Then came the unexpected intervention of Cecilia Sarkozy, which her husband, the French President, hinted yesterday had been decisive. Mme Sarkozy has visited Tripoli twice in recent weeks to plead for the nurses' release, and accompanied them home to Bulgaria. As she emerged from the plane yesterday, having travelled back with the medics, she put her hand on her heart and mouthed one word: "Merci".
A third nurse, 48-year-old Valentina Siropoulo, said: "We had very, very tough moments. We were nearly on the verge of death. Gradually we will have to get back to normal life now. It will be hard."
Nicolas Sarkozy brushed aside Socialist Party critics of his wife's intervention: "This is not a new form of diplomacy. There was a problem that needed solving. We solved it. Full stop. We didn't do it alone but we did it, that's what counts." But all the indications are that the medics were already heading for home before Mme Sarkozy jumped on the bandwagon. Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the EU foreign affairs commissioner who was also on the return flight, said: "This is a joyous day for Europe and Bulgaria. This decision will open the way for a new and enhanced relationship between the EU and Libya and reinforce our ties with the Mediterranean region and the whole of Africa."
Despite the stubborn determination of the Libyan courts to send them to their deaths, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of the dictator who heads the Gaddafi Foundation for Development and is regarded as the second most powerful person in Libya, said years ago that they would never be executed.
After the second death sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court earlier this month, Libya's High Judicial Council, a body above the judicial system linked to the regime, commuted the sentences to life and said they could be served in Bulgaria
The case dates back to a time when Col Gaddafi was as much of an international pariah as Saddam Hussein. Internationally recognised experts in Aids had concluded that the HIV epidemic among children at the hospital had started in 1997, a year before the medics' arrival, and was the result of bad hygiene. Hypodermic syringes, for example, were washed under the tap.
But the epidemic in a city with a strong record of hostility to the Gaddafi regime presented the regime with an acute problem, solved by pinning the blame on foreigners. No forensic evidence for their guilt was presented at either trial.
Fifty-six of the sick children have died but many of those still alive are being treated in France and Italy. Col Gaddafi had demanded $10m (£5m) per child to secure the foreigners' freedom. The families will receive a tenth of that, but the commercial deals that will be signed now the crisis has been harmoniously resolved will yield far more.
