change font size

print version

copyright

Other languages:

EU Lends Hand in Bulgarian Nurses Case

25 01 2007  Sofia has new allies over its Libya captives but is divided about how best to use their aid.

By Albena Shkodrova in Sofia (Balkan Insight, 25 Jan 07)

Membership of the European Union has boosted Sofia’s hand in defending five Bulgarian nurses, who have been sentenced to death by a Libyan court for allegedly infecting hundreds of children with HIV.

What had been a national campaign against the trial and sentences has crossed the country’s borders, with Bulgaria gaining unprecedented support from EU institutions and member countries over the case in the past few days.

On January 18, the European parliament demanded that the death sentences be overturned. And scores of EU politicians, including Italian prime minister Romano Prodi and EU commissioner for external relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner, this week issued strongly-worded statements against the court’s procedures and expressions of support for the nurses.

Among non-governmental organisations that have got involved in the campaign against the trial, the Association of Belgian Nurses has collected over 47,000 signatures demanding their colleagues’ immediate release.

But experts warn that now Bulgaria faces a challenge in finding the best way to use its newly acquired influence.

The trial of the nurses started eight years ago, while hundreds of Bulgarian medics were still working in the country under agreements reached in the Cold War.

In February 1999, police arrested 19 Bulgarian medics in connection to an epidemic of HIV/AIDS in a Benghazi children’s hospital.

They later released 13 of them but five nurses, Christiana Vulcheva, Nasya Nenova, Snezhana Dimirtova, Valentina Siropulo and Valya Chervenyashka, and Dr Zdravko Georgiev were charged with deliberately infecting 393 children with HIV and with plotting against Libya’s national security. Both crimes carry the death penalty under Libyan law.

The accused pleaded not guilty and alleged they had undergone torture to make them confess. In 2003, Luc Montagnier, the French physician who first detected the HIV virus, researched the case and denounced the charges, testifying in court that the epidemic broke out a year before the Bulgarians arrived in Libya.

Nevertheless, in May 2004 the court sentenced the five nurses to death. Dr Georgiev was acquitted but has not been permitted to leave Libya.

Libya’s Supreme Court overturned the sentences in December 2005 and ordered a retrial, but in December 2006 a lower court pronounced the same sentences for a second time.

The international community has given the trial some attention ever since September 2001. The EU countries and the United States have all been involved in bilateral negotiations with Libya over the issue, objecting to some of the court procedures and the length of the trial.

But accession to the EU has significantly increased Bulgaria’s ability to tap fresh political support.

While this raises hopes and enthusiasm, some warn it will be far from easy to use this new momentum, for which Bulgaria lacks a strategy.

One possible danger is that political pressure on Tripoli will be ramped up while the court is still sitting.

The EU’s vigour over the case has already angered Libyan politicians. This week, Foreign Minister Abdel Rahman Mohammad Shalkam said he was seeking the support of regional and international organisations against what he called the EU’s “biased” stance on the trial. On January 23, the General People’s Congress echoed the minister’s reaction.

European membership “raises Bulgaria’s authority and also engages the EU institutions to a much greater extent”, the Bulgarian justice minister, Georgi Petkanov, told Balkan Insight.

Experts point to the increased public support throughout the EU that the nurses’ plight is attracting. “As a member of the EU, Bulgaria is a thousand times stronger because its problems become problems of all the European citizens,” said Vladimir Chukov, an Arab specialist and prominent commentator on the trial.

“No one ever imagined that a problem concerning Bulgarian nationals could become an issue in the French presidential elections!” said Vladimir Sheytanov, the nurses’ first lawyer, after France’s right-wing presidential candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy, declared that the freedom of the nurses would be a priority for him.

While experts and decision-makers are delighted about their new influence internationally, they are not certain how best to use it.

“If the Bulgarian authorities want to effectively use the influence that EU membership gives them, they need to build a strong and unified strategy,” warned Chukov.

Experts point to the danger of applying excessive political pressure, or of overestimating the extent of EU support.

Fear of enraging Libya’s volatile leader has been a guiding principle in Bulgarian diplomacy over the trial and this fear remains alive.

“To people who have never visited Libya or witnessed how this country functions, it is difficult to imagine the fragility of the ground we step on when dealing with this case,” said a foreign ministry source, expressing many diplomats’ belief that a single incautious word could put the nurses at even greater risk.

Others, however, believe Bulgaria is in no danger of overreacting. “We have death sentences for innocent people. I don’t see how it can be any worse,” said Chukov. He maintains the real danger is of overestimating the will of the EU to get involved.

“[It remains an issue] how deep this support is, and how far the EU countries would go with it,” he said.

Accusations that the EU and the United States show their solidarity only in words, while trying to negotiate better energy deals with Muammar Gaddafi have already appeared in the Bulgarian media.

But some remain optimistic and hope public support for the nurses in the EU will grow enough to outweigh the member states’ economic interests.


Albena Shkodrova is BIRN Bulgaria country director. Balkan Insight is BIRN`s online publication.