On July 24, 2007, Libya extradited all six Bulgarians detained on charges of infecting hundreds of children with AIDS.
Nurses Kristiana Valcheva, Nasya Nenova, Valentina Siropulo, Valya Chervenyashka and Snezhana Dimitrova, together with Kristiana's husband Dr. Zdravko Georgiev and Palestinian medical student Ashraf al-Hajjuj, were arrested in Benghazi on February 9, 1999 and remained in Libyan prisons for a total of 2,755 days. They were indicted in 2000. in deliberately causing an AIDS epidemic in Benghazi with the aim of destabilizing the Jamahiriya.
Two more Bulgarian citizens were also brought to the trial in absentia - Emanuela Koleva and Smilyan Tachev, accused together with the main group of defendants of violating the moral norms and currency laws of Libya. In 2002, the doctors were acquitted of the charge of conspiracy against the state, but an intermediate instance preserved and continued the case on the remaining charges - intent, poisoning, adultery, alcohol use, illegal currency transfers.
On May 6, 2004, the nurses and Ashraf received death sentences by firing squad. Zdravko Georgiev was convicted only on the lesser charges, as were Koleva and Tachev, who had left Libya before the start of the trial. In 2005 The Supreme Court of Libya overturned the death sentences and remanded the case for a new trial. In 2006, the sentences were reconfirmed by the Court of Appeal, and on July 11, 2007 - finally confirmed by the Supreme Court.
On July 17, 2007, the death sentences of the Bulgarians were commuted to life imprisonment by the Supreme Judicial Council of Libya. On July 24 of this year, Valcheva, Nenova, Siropulo, Chervenyashka, Dimitrova, Georgiev and Hadjuj returned to Sofia Airport on a special flight after negotiations for their release, which lasted over eight years, ended with the mediation of the EU and France.