Paris, Friday
A SEVEN-YEAR-OLD scandal over the distribution of Aids-contaminated
blood and plasma by a French Government-run transfusion agency reached a
climax today when a Paris court inflicted fines and minor prison
sentences on three health experts, one a professor at Cambridge
University.
But prosecution lawyers and people with Aids were dissatisfied with
verdicts and said the fight for justice would continue.
The six-week trial in June and July of four men on the minor charge of
''fraud relating to goods'' after far more serious charges were dropped
was widely regarded in France as a sham aimed at protecting high-ranking
politicians. Judges took two-and-a-half months to reach the verdicts
announced yesterday.
Three hundred people, mainly haemophiliacs, have died of Aids and more
than 1000 have the HIV virus after receiving untreated contaminated
blood from the Government transfusion agency CNTS in 1985.
Far from satisfying public outrage, yesterday's verdicts created fresh
controversy. The victims and their lawyers demanded an Assize Court
hearing to re-examine the case and determine Government
responsibilities.
Defence lawyers again protested that their clients had been used as
scapegoats by politicians whom they accuse of being the real guilty
parties.
One of the accused, Dr Michel Garretta, 48, former director of the
CNTS, was not even in court yesterday. He was sentenced in his absence
to four years' imprisonment -- a maximum for the charge. He was also
fined F500,000 (#62,500) and ordered to pay F9.2m (#1.1m) damages, as
was Dr Jean-Pierre Allain, 43, now Professor of Medicine at Cambridge
University.
Dr Allain was sentenced to two years' imprisonment with a further two
years suspended. He appealed against the sentence.
Dr Allain has resigned from his clinical responsibilities at the
transfusion centre at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, the world
famous heart transplant centre, pending an independent inquiry.
In a statement, he said: ''I understand the judgment in Paris may
raise the concern of the British public about my ability out carry out
my duty as a director of the East Anglia blood transfusion centre.
''I have, therefore, decided to step down from my clinical
responsibilities until an appeal committee of impartial and qualified
professionals examines the evidence and produces an individual opinion
to guide the regional health service.
''I am absolutely confident that through this process my professional
integrity and personal honour will be fully restored,'' he added.
Cambridge University said Dr Allain would retain his post as professor
of transfusion medicine.
His head of department, Professor Robin Carrell, said he was shocked
and dismayed at the sentence and added: ''Professor Allain has been made
a scapegoat and he must not be harassed in the UK as he has been in
France.''
The court ordered an international arrest warrant to be issued against
Dr Garretta who, his lawyers said, was in Boston ''resting and avoiding
journalists''. Professor Jacques Roux, 69, was given a four-year
suspended sentence and Dr Robert Netter, 65, was acquitted.
One of the prosecution lawyers, Jacques Verges, recently tried to take
the case further by pressing charges for poisoning, which can entail
life imprisonment, against former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius and
former Health Ministers Georgina Dufoix and Edmond Herve.
The charges, however, were judged inadmissable because all three have
parliamentary immunity. A request to waive that privilege was rejected
by the National Assembly. Similar charges were retained, however,
against other people who are not politicians.
A French haemophiliacs' association first brought criminal charges
over contaminated blood in 1988 after trying in vain for years to alert
authorities to the dangers. Last year the French Government announced it
would pay compensation of between #50,000 to #200,000 to all victims of
blood transfusions contaminated with HIV before January 1, 1990. Many
people have complained that a substantial part of the sum will be paid
only if they develop Aids.
The contaminated blood affair, exploited by opposition parties and
publicised in harrowing television documentaries, has become far and
away the biggest scandal to have dogged the deeply unpopular Socialist
Government.
The four men who went trial last June were kept under the sort of
police protection normally reserved for people in cases of terrorism. Dr
Garretta's car was blown up in January, 1990.
He resigned in June last year, receiving #300,000 in benefits after
being awarded the Legion d'Honneur, France's highest honour, in 1989 at
the request of President Mitterrand.
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