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."

Molecular Evidence Ignored

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."

"There is a shocking lack of evidence in this case," said Janine Jagger, head of the International Health Care Worker Safety Center at the University of Virginia.

The Libyan court denied requests from defense lawyers to hear evidence from the international scientists defending the medics, and also rejected a report co-written by Luc Montagnier, who discovered the AIDS virus, which also concluded the medics were innocent.

The court's conduct suggests its verdict was driven by something other than the available evidence.

"The fact that it took only seven minutes to get the verdict speaks … of a political decision that had nothing to do with the reality of the facts. I can only hope that the Lybian Supreme Court will bother to give a look to the undeniable," and available, "scientific evidence," Salemi said.

Confessions Follow Alleged Torture

The six health workers were originally convicted in a 2004 trial and sentenced to death by firing squad before the supreme court ordered that a lower court re-examine thecase. Families of the infected children have been campaigning for the death sentences to be carried out.

The original conviction rested on confessions that allegedly came from coercion.

The workers were tortured until they confessed to the crime of working with the CIA to deliberately infect 426 Libyan children with HIV, according to a report from the Public Library of Science, also published in October 2006. Some of the torture was witnessed by Bulgarian engineer Smilian Tachev, who was jailed simultaneously for 174 days on unrelated charges.

Tachev held a press conference in Sofia, Bulgaria, on May 16, 2006, to talk about what he saw.

"The nurses were beaten with many-stranded wire, for a long time and painfully," Tachev said in the PLoS report. "Then they were made to run, crawl, stand on one leg with their hands stretched up. When they collapsed … they were dragged somewhere and brought back in a helpless state."

According to the report, Tachev saw unidentified objects forced down the women's throats with probes, electrocution and dogs let loose on the screaming victims.

Scientists Stand Against Families of Infected Children

The families of the infected children have held demonstrations calling for the health care workers' executions, and have asked Bulgaria and the United States to make payments to the children's families. Both governments have refused the request.

Rights groups the world over have rallied to the medics' defense to stop what they said may be a miscarriage of justice.

"Scientific evidence supports that these individuals are innocent of the charges brought against them," said Dr. Robert Gallo, director of the Institute of Human Virology in Baltimore. Gallo, a co-discover of HIV as the cause of AIDS, developed the first HIV blood test.

"It is the fervent hope and plea of the scientific community -- and especially those of us who are involved in HIV/AIDS research, care and treatment -- that this case be quickly resolved to reflect the innocence of the accused," he said.

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