The HIV trial in Libya (or Bulgarian nurses affair) concerns the trials, appeals and eventual release of six foreign medical workers charged with conspiring to deliberately infect over 400 children with HIV in 1998, causing an epidemic at El-Fatih Children's Hospital in Benghazi, Libya. About 56 of the infected children had died by August 2007. The total number of victims rose to 131 in 2022.
The defendants, arrested in 1999, were five Bulgarian nurses (often termed "medics") and a Palestinian medical intern. They were first sentenced to death, then had their case remanded to Libya's highest court, and were sentenced to death again, a penalty which was upheld by Libya's highest court in early July 2007. The six then had their sentences commuted to life in prison by a Libyan government panel. They were released following a deal reached with European Union representatives on humanitarian issues—the EU did not condone the guilty verdict in Libya against the six. On 24 July 2007, the five medics and the doctor were extradited to Bulgaria, where their sentences were commuted by the Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov and they were freed. Furthermore, a controversy has arisen concerning the terms of release, which allegedly include an arms trade as well as a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement signed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy in July 2007. Both the French and Bulgarian presidents have denied that the two deals were related to the liberation of the six, although this has been alleged by a variety of sources, including Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
The epidemic at El-Fatih and the subsequent trials were highly politicized and controversial. The medics say that they were forced to confess under torture and that they are innocent. Saif al-Islam Gaddafi later confirmed that Libyan investigators tortured the medics with electric shocks and threatened to target their families in order to extract the confessions, and confirmed that some of the children had been infected with HIV before the medics arrived in Libya. He said that the guilty verdict of the Libyan courts had been based on "conflicting reports" and said, "There is negligence, there is a disaster that took place, there is a tragedy, but it was not deliberate."
Some of the world's foremost HIV experts had written to courts and the Libyan government on the medics' behalf, blaming the epidemic on poor hygiene practices in the hospital. The epidemic is the largest documented outbreak of HIV within a hospital in history, and it was the first time HIV/AIDS became a public issue in Libya. Two of the world's foremost HIV experts, Luc Montagnier and Vittorio Colizzi, supported the medics' case, and reaction to their convictions was swift, with a number of appeals from scientific and human rights organizations, and various official condemnations of the verdict along with diplomatic initiatives.
Three of the Bulgarian medics published autobiographical books regarding the trial: Eight and a Half Years Hostage of Gaddafi by Kristiyana Vulcheva, In Gaddafi's Cage by Snezhana Dimitrova and Notes from Hell by Valya Cherveniashka and Nikolay Yordanov.
El-Fatih epidemic in Libya and accusations
The El-Fatih epidemic is the largest documented incident of nosocomial (hospital-induced) infection of HIV in history. The Libyan public was enraged and many foreign medical workers were arrested; six were eventually charged. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi initially blamed the CIA or Mossad for plotting to carry out a deadly experiment on the Libyan children.
The crisis first came to light in November 1998 when Libyan La magazine (issue 78) published an exposé about AIDS at the hospital. In December, the Association of Libyan Writers reported over 60 cases of AIDS so far that year in Libya. La interviewed Sulaiman al-Ghemari, Libyan Minister for Health, who told them that most of the cases concerned children. Parents believed their children were infected through blood transfusions in Benghazi's main children's hospital. Although La magazine was shut down, it was eventually revealed that over 400 children had been infected. Libya requested and received an emergency WHO team, which was sent in December and stayed through January 1999. The WHO team issued a classified report on the situation.