HIV Verdict Lacks Medical Support

Dec.20, 2006 — -- A verdict Tuesday from Libyan judge Mahmoud Hauissa sentenced five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to death for deliberately infecting hundreds of hospitalized children with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

While relatives of the infected children cheer, doctors and scientists said there is no medical evidence to support the charges, and analysts say they could escape the firing squad.

The six plan to appeal to Libya's Supreme Court, and Libya's justice and foreign ministers said their case could be overturned by a government-led body even if the supreme court upholds the verdict.

Libya's High Judicial Council, a nine-member group of experts headed by the justice minister, could intervene in the appeal at a more senior level than the supreme court.

"The Libyans are telling the world, 'Don't worry, the case is still open'," an European ambassador told The Associated Press.

The case has captured worldwide attention from members of the medical community who suggest that the Libyan government has turned a blind eye to the root of the problem -- alleged negligence and poor hygiene in Libyan hospitals.

The defense argued on Oct. 31, 2006, that neglect caused the HIV infections. Prosecutors demanded the death penalty for the six health workers on Aug. 29, 2006.

Molecular evidence suggests that the HIV that infected the children was already present in Libya before the foreign health care workers came in 1998, according to a study published in the Oct. 25, 2006, issue of the journal Nature.

"A sophisticated molecular clock analyses … allowed us to date the beginning of the infection at least three year before the arrival in Lybia of the Bulgarian and Palestinians medical workers," said report author Marco Salemi of the department of pathology, immunology and laboratory medicine at the Univeristy of Florida College of Medicine in Gainesville. "I am astonished by the verdict of the Libyan court."

Another group of 44 international scientists reiterates that the virus had been floating around the Libyan hospital before the accused workers got there. The scientists published their theories in a letter to the journal Science in October 2006. The letter suggests that poor infection-control practices -- including the lack of sterile, disposable injecting equipment -- caused the HIV outbreak.

Some of the kids probably had HIV to begin with, from birth; others probably got it from unsanitary hospital conditions. There is no evidence of a deliberate plot to infect kids with HIV, according to scientific evidence.

A team of international AIDS and health experts concluded that evidence against the six defendants is "deeply flawed," according to the Nature report.

While the prosecution's evidence may be flawed, evidence from the defense has allegedly been ignored.

More than 100 Nobel laureates penned a letter to the same journal that reads "strong scientific evidence is needed to establish the cause of this infection. However, independent science-based evidence from international experts has so far not been permitted in court."

That science could be key in an appeal.

"The scientific evidence … is beyond any reasonable doubt, and it is based on the most advanced techniques of DNA dating," said Salemi. "I could not say more plainly that the supposed guilt of the people on trial is a statistical impossibility."