HIV: 'Bulgarians innocent'
2003-09-03 19:52
Sofia, Bulgaria - The scientist who first identified the Aids-causing virus said Wednesday that five Bulgarian nurses and a doctor being tried in Libya did not infect hundreds of children with the virus, as charged.
Luc Montagnier told Bulgaria's state radio that infection with the HIV virus at the Al-Fateh hospital in Benghazi started because of poor hygiene in 1997, before the Bulgarians were hired there, and continued after their arrest.
"I think this tragedy was probably caused by some negligence," he said.
Montagnier spoke to the radio briefly after testifying in the Bulgarians' trial at a court in Benghazi.
He and Italian Aids scholar Vittorio Collizzi have studied the case, meeting a Bulgarian request for an independent international assessment.
Collizzi was scheduled to testify later in the day, the radio said.
The Bulgarians - five nurses and a doctor - are charged with infecting 393 Libyan children through blood transfusions. Twenty-tree of them have reportedly developed Aids and died.
Libyan police arrested them in February 1999. They were in prison until Sept. 2002, when a high tribunal in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, acquitted them of conspiracy charges and passed the case to an ordinary criminal court. Since then, the six have been under house arrest.
They have complained of severe torture during police interrogation.
Montagnier was director of a Paris laboratory that identified the HIV virus in 1983.
- AP