NEXT WEEK five nurses and a doctor will go on trial in Libya accused of deliberately infecting children with the HIV virus, as part of a Western conspiracy to bring suffering and death to what Colonel Gaddafi once proclaimed an HIV-free country. If found guilty at this third trial — they have already been imprisoned for seven years — they face the firing squad.

Luc Montagnier, the French virologist credited with discovering the HIV virus in 1983, has travelled to Libya to provide evidence that could help to exonerate them. But, in an astonishing setback, his submission is unlikely to be admitted as evidence.

Since diplomacy has failed, argues the journal Nature, it is time for scientists to come out in force. In a thundering editorial last month the journal said that “scientific leaders need to use all their influence urgently . . . It is time not only to save the doctor and nurses, but also to defend a common vision of science and law in establishing the truth, above all other imperatives.” Much of that rallying is now being done in the blogosphere (thank you to Declan Butler, Nature’s Paris correspondent, whose blog has provided invaluable updates). The medics’ plight has also prompted a letter to The Times from Lord Rees of Ludlow, President of the Royal Society, who cautions that the continuing silence may lead to “judicial murder”.

The details of the case of the Tripoli Six (or the Benghazi Six) are disturbing. The Bulgarian nurses and Palestinian doctor began work in 1998 at a hospital in Benghazi, in the north-east of the country. At the end of that year a cluster of children at the hospital were found to be carrying HIV. A Libyan magazine claimed that poor hygiene at the hospital was to blame.

In the resulting political furore, the homes of hospital workers were raided. The Tripoli Six, along with nine Libyan colleagues, were arrested. The Libyans were acquitted; the foreigners were charged with deliberately infecting 434 children with tainted blood. It emerged that confessions were extracted under torture. No matter — in Gaddafi’s eyes, the defendants were agents of the CIA or Mossad and guilty of unleashing a killer experimental virus on Libyan innocents.

Avocats Sans Frontières (Lawyers Without Borders) took up the case; Montagnier was called in to examine samples of the virus. He concluded that the children must have been infected before the health workers arrived in Benghazi. Some children, Montagnier found, also had hepatitis B and C, strengthening the likelihood that shoddy hygiene practices were responsible. The evidence was backed up by Vittorio Colizzi, an Italian authority on HIV, but was thrown out by Libyan doctors. In an odd twist, one of Gaddafi’s sons has announced his belief that the six are innocent. Meanwhile, 52 children have died.

Gaddafi offered to free the medics in return for a Lockerbie bomber plus almost $6 billion compensation (which would mirror the amount paid by Libya to families bereaved in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103). The offer has been declined by Bulgaria, supported by the European Union and America.

What matters, of course, is the science; Libya will not allow it into the courtroom. Without it, a murderous miscarriage of justice remains a dreadful possibility.

• DOES THE media dumb science down? I shall be debating this issue on Sunday afternoon, at the Battle of Ideas in London. And my fists shall be up.

  In recent weeks this column has asked whether poverty damages the brain, examined the ethics of chimeric experimentation, relayed the revelation that the Sun is not responsible for global warming and exposed attempts by China to cover up cases of bird flu.

  Mind you, I have also offered marital advice to scientists, revealed that religion makes women fat and discussed the idea of making clothes from chicken feathers. This newspaper has also reported the implausible prediction that the human race will diverge into two subspecies: a tall, intelligent aristocracy presiding over an underclass of dim goblins.

  I may well end up arguing with myself.

  The Battle of Ideas, organised by the Institute of Ideas with The Times, will be held on October 28-29 at the Royal College of Art, London

  www.battleofideas.co.uk

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