Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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United Press International - Tuesday, February 09, 1999
Fabius is accused along with former Health Minister Edmond Herve and former Social Affairs Minister Georgina Dufoix in the first special court trial since World War II of ministers for their officials acts.
Fabius is also the current National Assembly speaker.
At issue is what prosecutors claim was a specific "strategy of favoritism" to block use of a U.S.-designed test of blood for AIDS, until a test designed by French scientists was ready.
The prosecutors contend that the decision had the effect of causing hundreds of persons -- many of them haemophiliacs -- to contract the AIDS virus from transfusions during the early 1980s.
At today's trial opening, prosecutors charged that in 1985 the ministers had ultimate responsibility for a blood transfusion service, which sought donors among prisoner and prostitute high-risk groups.
Since then, France has recorded 13 times more AIDS cases among hospital patients than Britain and six times more than Germany.
The government says at least 1,000 persons have died among the 4,333 people who contracted AIDS from contaminated blood, during the 1980s. For purposes of the trial, the three former ministers are charged with involuntary homicide and "attacking the physical integrity of others" in the deaths of five persons and AIDS infection of two others.
If convicted, the former officials of the late President Francois Mitterrand during the mid-1980s, face up to five years in prison and a maximum fine of $90,000.
Previous trials have already resulted in convictions of four former health officials, but today's trial of high officials is the first time accountability was placed so prominently in government.
The especially convened Court of Justice of the Republic is made up of three professional jurists and a dozen lawmakers and is likely to last through February.
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