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AIDS medics to face firing squad

The death in Libya six weeks ago of nine-year-old Marwa Annouiji from AIDS was much more than just another developing world statistic. In her short, life, dominated by illness, the frail child was a pawn in a high-level game of international relations.

Marwa, from al-Bayda on the Mediterranean coast, was the 52nd Libyan child to die as a result, Libya claims, of a deliberate operation by foreign medical workers to pump HIV-infected blood into 426 girls and boys at the al-Fatah Hospital in Benghazi.

Tomorrow, barring some extraordinary intervention, the six medics -- a Palestinian doctor and five Bulgarian nurses who have been in prison in Libya for seven years -- will have their sentence confirmed by a court in the capital, Tripoli, as execution by firing squad.

The case has sparked unprecedented mobilization in support of the medics among international scientists who have found the Libyan evidence groundless. European governments and the US stand accused of abandoning the medical workers for powerful strategic and economic reasons.

"We are still hoping wisdom will prevail," said the head of the nurses' defense team, French lawyer Emmanuel Altit.

"The court has not granted the defense its rights, the Libyan evidence in the case is discredited, and the medics' confessions were extracted under mental, physical and sexual torture," Altit said.

The six -- Dr Ashraf al-Hajuj and nurses Kristiyana Vatcheva, Nasya Nenova, Valentina Siropulo, Valya Chervenyashka and Snezhana Dimitrova -- took up government contracts at the hospital in Libya's second city in March 1998. The first known cases of HIV infection were reported the same year. A WHO report found that the virus had probably been spread because of a lack of proper medical equipment.

The six were imprisoned in March 1999. Libyan courts ordered reports from the world's top AIDS scientists, including Luc Montagnier, one of the discoverers of HIV.

Montagnier found the high rate of hepatitis B and C at the hospital suggested that poor hygiene was to blame for the spread of HIV. But the prosecution ignored his report and ordered one from Libyan researchers in 2003.

On May 6, 2004, the death sentences were pronounced. Then on Christmas Day last year the Libyan Supreme Court ordered a retrial, which led to a new call for the death sentence this August.

As a result of care problems in Libya, the 374 surviving children are now outpatients at hospitals in Italy and France.

Experts on Libya say Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi is using the children as pawns in his discussions with Western powers over burning issues including contracts for oil, arms and aircraft.

He remains bitter about the pariah status he acquired after the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. Earlier this year Libya said Bulgaria should pay the families of the children US$2.7 billion in compensation -- which is exactly the sum paid by Libya for the Pan Am 103 bombing.
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