French Relive '80s Blood Scandal
A woman infected with HIV during a blood transfusion 14 years ago begged three former ministers Tuesday to be truthful about their role in the nation's tainted blood scandal, whatever the cost.
In the second week of their trial, former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius, former Health Minister Edmond Herve and former Social Affairs Minister Georgina Dufoix sat soberly as the witness testified from her wheelchair.
"You, without doubt, still dream of being president one day. So you wait for this court to acquit you," Sylvie Rouy, 35, said to Fabius, who is currently speaker of Parliament. "I don't want your compassion. I want to know why I was infected."
Rouy was contracted the AIDS virus during an August 1985 transfusion while giving birth.
"The object of this trial is to bring forth the truth," Fabius testified.
He and his co-defendants are accused of manslaughter in the AIDS deaths of five people and with "attacking the integrity of a person" for the infection of two others: Rouy and Yves Aupic.
About 4,000 people were infected with the disease through transfusions in the mid-1980s, and hundreds have died.
The former officials are accused of delaying putting an American AIDS screning test on the market while a French test was being readied. They also are accused of failing to import expensive heated blood products cleansed of the virus.
Dufoix, reiterating previous denials, testified Tuesday that "Never did the problems of financial costs put brakes" on government action.
Dr. Jacques Roux, a leading health official at the time, testified that French government policy "was ahead of other countries."
Roux, who has been implicated in the scandal but is not currently on trial, said he was treated as a "racist" and a "fascist" for recommending the screening of blood donors in 1983.
The trial before the Court of Justice of the Republic has been marked by criticism of the presiding judge, who some say has not mastered the facts of the case, and shows favoritism toward the defendants.
The former ministers face up to five years in prison and a $90,000 fine on the first count, and up to three years in prison and a $55,000 fine on the second.
By Nicolas Marmie