France Ministers In AIDS Trial
Witnesses bearing the scars of their suffering from AIDS faced down three former French Cabinet Ministers who went on trial Tuesday for their roles in a scandal that left hundreds dead or dying from HIV-tainted blood.
One victim came on crutches to the special court hearing the case, another in a wheel chair and a third encumbered by the enduring pain of a mother who has lost her only child.
"Have you no shame, sirs, madame?" asked Agnes Cochin. Her son died at the age of five after receiving a blood transfusion for jaundice on May 25, 1985.
Former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius, former Health Minister Edmond Herve and former Social Affairs Minister Georgina Dufoix were all to appear before the special court, which was brought to order Tuesday by Christian Le Gunehec, the President of the Court of Justice of The Republic.
It was the first time since World War II that government ministers were being tried for their official acts.
The unprecedented case, brought by seven victims of the scandal of whom five are now dead, will test for the first time in France whether ministers can be held criminally accountable for the actions of their subordinates.
All three former ministers are charged with employing a "strategy of favoritism" that delayed systematic testing for AIDS with an American-made test until a French test was ready.
Nearly 4,000 people in France contracted AIDS from transfusions in the early 1980s. An experts' report in 1991 showed that about 300 contaminations were "avoidable."
The three are accused in the deaths of five people from AIDS and the infection of two others in 1985.
Fabius was widely tipped as a future president until the scandal clouded his career. He has had to take temporary leave from his post as National Assembly speaker to stand trial.
Four health officials already have been convicted in previous trials, but the trial starting Tuesday is the first time courts will judge the accountability of top government officials.
The three ministers all served under Socialist President Francois Mitterrand from 1984-86, when AIDS was surfacing as a modern-day plague.
The American test, manufactured by Abbott Laboratories, was available in March 1985. But it was not until Aug. 1, 1985 that systematic testing of blood donors went into effect in France -- on Fabius' orders -- using a French test by Diagnostics Pasteur.
The defendants say they never knowingly approved the use of contaminated blood products in transfusions.
"In my soul and conscience, in the deepest part of my being and before God, I do not feel guilty," Dufoix has said.
The ex-ministers are accused of involuntary homicide and "attacking the physical integrity of others." They face up to 5 years in prison and a maximum fine of $90,000 on the first count, and up to 3 years in prison and a maximum fine of $55,000 on the second.
The extent of he scandal was revealed in a government-ordered report released in September 1991 that showed ranking health officials knowingly allowed tainted blood products to be used in transfusions.
The French victim group AFT says 1,000 people died because of the scandal.
©1998 CBS Worldwide Corp. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report