Ex PM Explains 'Bulgarian Medics in Libya' Case to US Producers

Ex Bulgarian PM Sergey Stanishev (right) with US producers Richard Harding and Sam Feuer. Photo by BGNES

Former Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev has met with two US producers working on a feature film on the dramatic story of the 6 Bulgarian medics who were tortured by the Libyan regime to confess having deliberately infected 400 children with HIV.

Producers Richard Harding and Sam Feuer from Sixth Sense Productions have recently revealed the movie with the initial title 'The Benghazi Six' will be shot in 2012.

The two producers stated before Bulgarian media they were touched by the story and contemplate screening it already in 2007, when Harding said he hoped Angelina Jolie, Geoffrey Rush, and Cate Blanchet to play some of the main characters.

Harding and Feuer are currently in Bulgaria, where their new production, The First Grader, is shown at the Sofia Film Fest.

The travesty trial against the Bulgarian medics sponsored by Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was triggered by their arrest back in 1999. They spent 8 painful yars in prison and were sentenced to death twice. In July 2007, the involvement of the French Sarkozy Presidential couple in the final stages of the talks, which has been deemed crucial by Bulgaria and the medics, led to their release.

"Many nations managed to pull their citizens out of Libya, but Bulgaria was late," Stanishev told the US producers when he was asked why the Libyan regime "picked" Bulgaria as the victim country.

Stanishev, the leader of the Socialist Party, admitted that the freeing of the Bulgarian nurses was the achievement of international diplomats from many countries. He was in charge of the Bulgarian government in 2005-2009.

Harding and Feuer have already met with Stanishev's Foreign Minister Ivaylo Kalfin; on Friday they will be meeting with Bulgarian MPs, and also hope to get the chance to talk to Stanishev's predecessor, former Bulgarian PM and ex Tsar Simeon Saxe-Coburg (PM in 2001-2005).

On Sunday, the producers will have a meeting with the Bulgarian doctor and the five nurses themselves, who fell pray to the Libyan dictator.

The script for the future feature film is yet to be written, and the filming will likely begin in 2012. The producers will seek to attract funding from both Europe and the USA for their ambitious project. They have revealed that the movie will feature one single political figure as a character representing the many politicians involved in the efforts to free the jailed Bulgarian medics.

Last week, Libya's former Justice Minister, who recently joined the anti-Gaddafi forces in the country, stated that not the Bulgarian medics, but the regime of leader Muammar Gaddafi was responsible for infecting more than 400 children with HIV.

A Libyan official, who bought infected blood at a low price and pocketed the balance, is behind the HIV outbreak in Benghazi, according to fresh diplomatic cables, revealed by WikiLeaks.

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