The Libyan HIV case

There is one thing the recent reporting about the Libyan conviction of Bulgarian nurses (and a Palestinian doctor) for infecting children with HIV does not cover much: what motive was alleged for the medics to do this?

Well, as the New York Times reported in 2005:

They were also charged with working for Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service.

"Nurses from little towns in Bulgaria acting as agents of Mossad?" said Antoanetta Ouzounova, 28, one of Ms. Chervenyashka's two daughters. "It all sounds funny and absurd until you realize your mother could die for it." Although the motive of subversion has been dropped, the death sentence stands.

I see that Judith Miller did a long article on the case in September this year. I missed it at the time, but it is a fascinating report. She says that the conspiracy theory originated with Col. Gadhafi himself, yet one of his sons has helped the defence case. Miller writes:

Saif al-Islam has challenged his father's argument that the outbreak was a foreign plot. "There is no conspiracy," he told me. "There is no hand of Mossad or the CIA. This was a question of mismanagement, or negligence, or bad luck, or maybe all three." Conspiracy theories, rooted in Libyan and Arab culture, had created a terrible dynamic in this case, he said.

Well, maybe it is OK for me to continue to believe Arab cultures to be peculiarly prone to conspiracy nonsense, now that I have Col Gadhafi's son supporting me!