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FACTBOX-Profiles of foreign medics in Libyan HIV case
24 Jul 2007 07:06:46 GMT
Source: Reuters
July 24 (Reuters) - Six foreign medics convicted of infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV landed in Sofia after an accord was reached between Libya and the European Union on medical aid and political ties.

Following are profiles of the six:

* SNEZHANA DIMITROVA: Aged 54. Formerly a nurse in Sofia, she suffered a nervous breakdown in 2005 and broke her leg last year.

-- Dimitrova, jailed six months after her arrival at the Al-Fateh hospital in 1998, says it is inconceivable a nurse and mother could commit the crime of which she is accused. She has a daughter, Polina, and a son Ivailo.

* VALIA CHERVENIASHKA: Aged 52. Cherveniashka began working in Benghazi in February 1998. She says she was beaten by Libyan guards but did not confess to infecting the children.

-- Her husband, Emil Uzunov, staged a hunger strike in 2003 at the Libyan embassy in Sofia. He and Cherveniashka's two daughters have criticised Sofia's handling of the case, saying dozens of nationals from Poland, Thailand and other countries were also arrested but later released.

* NASYA NENOVA: Aged 41. After working as a nurse for five years in Bulgaria, she travelled to work in Libya in February 1998 and was jailed around a year later.

-- She tried to kill herself after she said she was tortured with electric shocks in jail. Her son Radoslav was a schoolboy when she was arrested and is now at university.

* CHRISTIANA VALCHEVA: Aged 48. Worked for six years in Sofia hospitals as a nurse before travelling to Benghazi in 1998. Libyan prosecutors say she is the mastermind in the case, basing their evidence on blood bags found in her house in Libya, although she never worked in the children's hospital itself.

-- "With God as my witness, I am innocent," she told the court in the last trial, where her husband Zdravko Georgiev was acquitted. She has a son.

* VALENTINA SIROPOULO: Aged 48. She was a nurse for 18 years and travelled to Libya in February 1998. Siropoulo, who is married, says she showed compassion for the children in the AIDS ward where she worked.

-- She said beatings and torture with electric shocks left her with partial paralysis to her face and unable to talk for months. She has a son.

* ASHRAF ALHAJOUJ: A Palestinian doctor in his late 30s who has lived most of his life in Libya, he strongly protests his innocence and says the charges were fabricated by police.

-- He has said it is inconceivable he could harm Libyan children. On June 19 Bulgaria announced that it had granted citizenship to Alhajouj, a decision which could help bring him out of Libya along with the five native Bulgarian nurses.
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A burned house is seen near a fallen tree in the village of Filipovtsi, south-eastern Bulgaria, August 27, 2007. Wildfires burning in the southern part of the Balkan country have claimed two lives and burned many houses, local media said.



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