Nearly a year later, on February 7, 2000, the six Bulgarians were charged together with nine Libyans and one Palestinian, all of the latter members of the administrative and managerial staff of the Benghazi hospital.  The Bulgarians and the Palestinian were charged with intentionally infecting 393 Libyan children with the HIV virus through injection of contaminated blood products.  The Bulgarians were also charged with acts conflicting with the norms and traditions in Libya.

At the first court hearing, on February 28, 2000, the Bulgarian defendants were familiarized with the indictment and pleaded not guilty.  Later on two of the nurses on trial, who had made confessions under investigation, retracted their statements.

Apart from the nine Libyan defendants, who have been released on bail, a Palestinian, Dr Ashraf al-Hadjudj, is also standing trial.  Part of the prosecution case is based on his confessions.

The 1,600 pages of case records, bound in several folders, are placed on the judge's desk at the beginning of each hearing.  An informed source said they contain the following items:  the indictment, files of the People's Prosecution Bureau, of the Libyan Prosecutor's Office and of the prosecutor's office in Benghazi, testimony files, written affidavits, medical records of 23 children who died of AIDS at the Benghazi hospital, medical reports and a list of all children infected with HIV by October 1999, list of HIV positive mothers, complaints filed by some of the infected children's parents, reports on infected children issued by clinics in Italy, Austria, Switzerland, France and Germany, reports on the foreigners that worked at the Benghazi hospital during the period of the epidemic.