The New York Times - December 23, 2005
Craig S. Smith

While the agreement made no mention of six Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor who have been sentenced to death after being convicted of infecting the children, it could pave the way for a commutation of their sentences or their eventual release once Libya's highest court considers their final appeal on Sunday. The court's decision isn't expected until January.

"It is important to address the needs and concerns of the infected children," a spokesman for the Bulgarian foreign ministry, Dimitar Tsanchez, said by telephone today. "We will have to see what the next development will be."

The six nurses and the doctor were arrested in 1999 after the virus that causes AIDS spread through the wards where they worked at the Al Fateh Children's Hospital in the Mediterranean coastal city of Benghazi. Last year they were sentenced to death by firing squad after being convicted of deliberately spreading the virus. The court case and trial were marred by charges of torture and forced confessions, but the verdicts were widely supported by the Libyan population.

Since the convictions, the seven medical workers have been caught in a nightmarish political standoff between Libya and Bulgaria, with Libya demanding hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation for the infections and Bulgaria refusing to pay "blood money" for a crime that they say didn't take place.

International AIDS experts concur that the infections were probably spread inadvertently because of the hospital's poor sanitation and hygiene.

Libya's mercurial leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, has refused to intervene in the case, citing the independence of his country's judiciary. But his son, Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, who heads a charitable foundation that has acted as intermediary in resolving the country's other international impasses, began working more than a year ago to find a politically acceptable solution to the problem.

Mr. Qaddafi told this newspaper in December last year that the seven would not be executed and that Libya would like to extradite the nurses to Bulgaria.

But Libya has continued to insist that Bulgaria pay compensation to the families of the children, more than 400 of whom were infected and at least 50 of whom have died. Atone time Libya even suggested that it might link the nurses' fate to the extradition of a Libyan man serving a life sentence in Scotland for the 1988 downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Since then, the United States, Britain and the European Union have joined in an effort to find a solution. Their representatives met with those from Mr. Qaddafi's charitable organization, and delegates from Libya and Bulgaria in Tripoli on Wednesday to sign the agreement setting up the International Benghazi Families Support Fund.

The fund will be run by a board including representatives of the young Mr. Qaddafi's foundation, Bulgaria, the European Union and AIDS experts from Libya and the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas.

The sources and amount of money provided have not been disclosed, although the Bulgarian president, Georgy Parvanov, was quoted in a Bulgarian newspaper today as saying that his country would have to pay "a very high price" to win the nurses' release.

Bulgaria had rejected earlier Libyan suggestions that the country pay $10 million in compensation for each child infected, the same amount that Libya agreed to pay each of the families of the 270 people killed in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.

Bulgaria's Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying that the agreement was "part of the international effort to find an outcome acceptable to all sides of the situation that followed the tragic spread of H.I.V./AIDS in Benghazi." It said the fund will "seek, collect and coordinate the distribution of financial and material aid to the Benghazi families."

Mr. Tsanchez, the ministry spokesman, said that he didn't think a specific amount of money has yet been discussed. He stressed, however, that the fund was not "compensation" and that Bulgaria still considered the nurses innocent.

"We are convinced the Bulgarian nurses have nothing to do with this tragedy," Mr. Tsanchez said.

The families have said that they believe the evidence shows that the nurses were responsible, whether or not the infections were deliberate, but that they don't care where the money comes from as long as their children are cared for.

They had asked a Libyan court to order the hospital to pay 15 million Libyan dinars, or about $11.7 million, in compensation for each child, but the court awarded them only about $272,600 per child - an award that the families rejected. Since then, their hope has rested with the international negotiations.

In his comments today, President Parvanov expressed cautious optimism that a resolution was near. "I sincerely hope that this will be their last Christmas in Libya," he was quoted as saying of the nurses.

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