Vote for nurses in Bulgarian elections

It is a fair bet that Kristiyana Valtcheva, Nasya Nenova, Valentina Siropulo, Valya Chervenyashka and Snezhana Dimitrova neither know nor care much about the European Parliament, not least because they have been in a Libyan jail for exactly seven years this week.

Sadly, few in the European Parliament know much about them. But that is why, when Bulgaria chooses its members of the European Parliament on 20 May, they should be elected with cross-party support.

The imprisonment of the five Bulgarian nurses, plus Ashraf al-Hajuj, a Palestinian intern, is a scandalous abuse of the legal system in the European Union’s neighbourhood, not just because of the preposterous charges but because of the feebleness of the outside world’s response. The six were arrested on 7 March 1997 on the charge of deliberately infecting with HIV 426 children in a Benghazi hospital. Colonel Muammar Qaddafi, the Libyan dictator, said that the infections were part of a plot by the CIA or Mossad. Fanciful though that may sound, the story was pushed hard by the state propaganda machine and is still widely believed in Libya. A report by two outside scientists, Professors Luc Montagnier (one of the original discoverers of AIDS) and Vittorio Colizzi has disproved the deliberate infection theory. By far the most likely explanation for the AIDS outbreak was poor hospital hygiene. In the past seven years the ‘Tripoli six’ have been abominably treated, including both psychological and physical torture. They were originally sentenced to death by firing squad on 6 May 2004 but a retrial was ordered by Libya’s supreme court. The sentence was upheld by another court last December.

Bulgaria has tried hard to make the scandal an international issue and has also raised money to help the AIDS-infected children. But Libya appears to want to do a deal, involving freedom for the Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, the man convicted for organising the Lockerbie bombing and payment of $2.7 billion in compensation - the exact amount paid by Libya to the victims of that outrage. The argument amounts to: "You release an unjustly convicted Libyan and we will free six unjustly convicted foreigners." Amazingly, much of the rest of the world, including many African and Arab countries and even some European politicians, seems to agree with Libya’s attempt to link the two. The African Union and Arab League have called for the issue not to be "politicised".

And in that shameful impasse, the nurses are stuck. Bulgarian public opinion and the country’s politicians are solidly behind them. But what more can be done to raise the political pressure for their freedom? An ingenious and commendable suggestion comes from Georgi Gotev, a Bulgarian journalist. The likely outcome of the May election is that of Bulgaria’s 18 MEPs, six to seven will be elected for the Bulgarian Socialist Party; five or six from Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (a new centrist party), two or three from the Turkish party, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, and two or three from the far-right Ataka party.

Gotev suggest that the big parties each adopt two nurses as their top candidates and the Turkish party takes the fifth. The choice would be random: the nurses’ freedom, not their politics, is the issue.

That will be a modest sacrifice for five Bulgarian political insiders who would like to board the gravy train that shuttles between Brussels and Strasbourg. But it will catapult the scandal of the imprisoned nurses into the heart of Europe’s political institutions and demonstrate an excellent non-partisan side to Bulgarian politics (not always known for its sober pursuit of the national interest). It will also, Gotev notes, raise the turnout.

• The writer is eastern and central Europe correspondent of The Economist.

It is a fair bet that Kristiyana Valtcheva, Nasya Nenova, Valentina Siropulo, Valya Chervenyashka and Snezhana Dimitrova neither know nor care much about the European Parliament, not least because they have been in a Libyan jail for exactly seven years this week.

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