Brussels, 10/01/2006 (Agence Europe) - According to the Sofia Morning News information service of 10 January, the Libyan president, Mouammar Gaddafi asserted during a televised interview that he is “convinced” the Bulgarian medical workers held in Tripoli deliberately inoculated over 400 children with the AIDS virus at the paediatric hospital in Benghazi and that they have admitted carrying out this act under the orders of a certain “John”. “We asked the Bulgarians who gave them the order to do it. They said: John gave us the virus and money and left. We must find out who this John is and the service he works for”, Gaddafi apparently said. “We shall find the services who ordered this to be done and justice will be done”, the Libyan president promised. He reportedly also explained that the parents of the contaminated children want vengeance and that, for this reason, there can be no “political deal” in this affair.
EUROPE recalls that, last December, Libya's Supreme Court had cancelled the death sentence of the Bulgarian medical workers and the Palestinian doctor involved (see our bulletin 9098), which means that the procedure must start again at zero. Last week, the French foreign minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, had visited the nurses in their prison in Tripoli. Mr Douste-Blazy presented the Libyan authorities with a “French plan” which is in fact a chapter of the European Union plan to provide assistance to the contaminated children and to the Libyan health system in the hope that this will help to bring the situation out of deadlock. France thus suggests providing aid and support to the hospital of Benghazi, staff training and the provision of medical equipment.