Two events happening abroad dominated Bulgaria's public life this past week. While the first event - the release of European Commission (EC) report on Bulgaria's readiness to join European Union as of January 1 2007 - will not dramatically affect most people's lives, the other event bears directly on the lives of five Bulgarian women held in custody in a foreign land.

For more than seven long and painful years, five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor have been held in a Libyan prison, accused of deliberately infecting more than 400 Libyan children with HIV at Benghazi Children's Hospital in 1998-99. For seven years, every Bulgarian has lived aware of the trial of the "nurses", as they are known in Bulgaria.

Three Bulgarian governments, all sharing the position that the nurses are innocent, have served terms since the day of their arrest, each promising to resolve the issue and bring them safely back home. So far, so good, one might say, the nurses are still in custody.
Over this seven-year period, they have gone through a series of court rulings, each of which somehow coincided with important moments for Bulgaria. The most critical moment was on May 6 2005 (St George's Day, a major public holiday in Bulgaria, when the country honours its soldiers and their valour), when the nurses were sentenced to death.

Six months later, on December 25, Christmas day, the Libyan Supreme Court overruled the death sentences and ruled that the case be returned to a criminal court for further investigation.

May 11 2006 is the most recent episode of the nurses' saga, since it is the first day of their re-trial in Tripoli.

Since the day of the nurses' arrest, the Bulgarian state and diplomacy has supported the idea of the independence of the Libyan court and that the trial has to be viewed just as a court case. However, the fact that all major case developments happened on important dates for Bulgaria suggested that Libya, in the person of its leader Muammar Gaddafi, was sending messages to Bulgaria, and nothing was as simple as it looked.

However, Bulgarian authorities maintained their position that becoming emotional was not appropriate, and that the Bulgarian public had to remain calm about the nurses' trial. All attempts for public protests in Bulgaria against the carrying-out of the trial in Libya were qualified by Bulgarian state officials as not the official Bulgarian stance.

As May 11 neared, for the first time in seven years everything seemed to be going well for the Bulgarian medics held in Libya.

The first positive message came from Feim Chaushev, Bulgaria's Deputy Foreign Minister, who, on April 21, said in an interview with private Darik Radio that the nurses would most likely return to Bulgaria by the end of autumn. This was the first time ever that a Bulgarian official had made such a statement, taking the responsibility to actually specify a length for the trial.

What some took as the turning point in the nurses' case and the reason for Chaushev's confidence was that there was a move on the question of compensation demanded by the parents of the infected Libyan children. In their civil claim against the nurses, the parents had demanded a compensation of $10 million for each child. Bulgaria has always claimed that compensation would never be paid because this would indicate acknowledgement of the nurses' guilt.

Despite Bulgaria's position, a few months ago a special fund was established to help with treatment of the sick children. The fund is supported by the US and the EU; Bulgaria is represented by Ivan Chomakov, mayor of Plovdiv and chair of the non-governmental organisation Association for Promoting Bilateral Relations with Libya.

On April 25, the Arabic-language e-newspaper Libya Today reported that Libyan authorities had suggested that the $53 million Libyan state debt to Bulgaria be transferred to the fund. Bulgaria's Foreign Ministry denied the report, but on April 28 Chaushev again made the news, saying that Bulgaria would most likely support the transfer of the debt claims against Libya to the fund. Chaushev, however, rejected reports in the Libyan press citing sources saying that Bulgaria had already agreed to write off the debt. He hinted that the debt claims could not be collected if the country's support for the fund would assist in a quicker release of the nurses. It was not the major development the Bulgarian public had awaited for seven years, but at least the public felt that something was going on and the idea that the nurses would be home soon was becoming more and more believable.

It was obvious, however, that Chaushev was the man who always broke the important news on the issue. Neither President Georgi Purvanov nor Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev or Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin stepped out of the official line of not commenting on the case and maintaining that the public should not do anything that might offend the Libyan side.

Seven years, however, is a a long period to stay calm and the outbreak inevitably came just a week before May 11, the date of the court hearing of the nurses.

On May 3, Bulgarian-language daily Novinar published 12 specially commissioned cartoons mocking Libya and its leader Gaddafi. Viewed most charitably, it was a bold move to mark World Press Freedom Day. Everyone in Bulgaria feared that the cartoons would provoke at least a reaction similar to that against the cartoons published in Danish press some months back.

Suddenly, the feeling that the nurses might not come home returned.

Bulgarian authorities promptly reacted to the cartoons. Hours after their publication the cartoons were condemned by President Purvanov, the Foreign Ministry and, of course, Libya's embassy in Sofia. Purvanov was the most active in trying to save whatever spirit could have remained from the days before the cartoons' publication by inviting the Libyan ambassador to Bulgaria to the presidential office.

After the meeting, Purvanov expressed his hope that the cartoons would not damage bilateral relations. "The message of the cartoons is not shared by Bulgarian institutions and society". Dimitar Tsanchev, Foreign Ministry spokesperson, issued a similar statement.

The Libyan embassy said that the cartoons would not serve the interests of the two nations, nor bilateral relations, which lately had taken a turn for the better, according to the embassy.

Despite expectations of harsh reactions in Libya against the cartoons, the only response so far from the Libyan state was to summon the Bulgarian ambassador in Tripoli to explain the publication. An unexpected reaction from a state that worships its leader.

With the nearing of May 11, more and more details of the whole seven-year trial have started to be reveal. On May 8, Solomon Passi, former minister of foreign affairs in the Simeon Saxe-Coburg government and current chairperson of the parliamentary committee on foreign policy, said in an interview with private channel bTV that the trial of the nurses was political. Libya was a country with a strictly pyramid structure in decision making, and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi controlled this decision-making mechanism, Passi said.

Whether Purvanov and the Foreign Ministry have managed to save the day by distancing themselves from the cartoons, however, is something yet to be seen in the reaction of Gaddafi and the Libya court.