Word: benghazi
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...just another sign of Sarkozy's results-focused approach to politics and his intent to raise France's profile in foreign affairs. He first pledged to concentrate on the prisoners' plight when he took office in May. Convicted of purposely infecting nearly 440 Libyan children with HIV in a Benghazi hospital, the medics--five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor--faced execution until Libya commuted the sentence to life in exchange for a $460 million compensation to victims' families. When further talks to get them out of Libya stalled, Sarkozy sent his wife to meet with Gaddafi--and to warn...
...medics marked the end of a radical reversal in their fortunes over the past month - and Sarkozy's occasionally controversial diplomatic crusade on their behalf. Less than a month ago, the death penalty handed down with the medics' convictions of having willfully infected 438 children in a Benghazi hospital was upheld by Libya's highest legal body. But intense negotiations among Libyan, French and European Union authorities produced an agreement for the families of the HIV-infected children to receive up to $460 million in damages in exchange for their pardoning of the accused. Libya's legal system soon thereafter...
...when asked to explain exactly why he took up the somewhat remote and curious cause of six Bulgarians, Sarkozy replied with a slightly quirky answer of his own. "They were French because they were unjustly accused, and were suffering," Sarkozy remarked - echoing previous assurances by international experts that the Benghazi infections were the result of unsanitary conditions and lax hospital procedures, rather than criminal intent. "They had to be gotten out of there, and that's what...
...Independent observers and health experts have long said it was not the medical personnel, but unsanitary conditions and lax hospital procedures that caused 438 Benghazi children to be infected with HIV, and turned the fate of the accused health workers into a humanitarian cause celebre. But international efforts to secure their freedom had largely been frustrated until Sarkozy's election to the French presidency in May - curiously, he had made defending "the Bulgarian nurses" one of his campaign promises. Although no one in France is certain why Sarkozy took the plight of the Bulgarians so close to heart, his involvement...
...amount of money going to families is still unknown and both Bulgaria and the E.U. refuse to call it "compensation" since that implies guilt.) "We should never underestimate Libya," says the Bulgarian journalist Melkov. "Gaddafi has been able to make the West demonstrate compassion for the victims of Benghazi, while at the same time trading his aces in the best possible way on the international stage. He plays his cards very well...