HIV infection medics' death sentence commuted

The death sentences of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor have been commuted to life in prison, a top Libyan official said tonight.

"Their sentence was reduced to life in prison," the official said before Libya's Supreme Judiciary Council was expected to make its decision public.

Relatives of the Libyan HIV-infected children had agreed earlier today to drop their demand that nurses and doctor be executed, the lawyer for the families said.

"We have notified in writing that the families have relinquished their demand for the execution" of the six medics, Idriss Lagha, head of the Libyan-based Association for the Families of HIV-Infected Children, said.

The families' approval to give up demanding the death sentences could pave the way for Libya's Supreme Judiciary Council to rule on the case later tonight, officials said.

Lagha said the families had received all the compensation money they were due under a settlement reached last week.

"All the families have received their cash transfer, one million dollars (€725,750) for each infection," Lagha said.

He said the families' association had notified the Gaddafi foundation, which has been acting as a mediator in the case, that all the compensation funds had been handed over.

The foundation would "relay this information to the Supreme Judiciary Council, which should meet shortly," Lagha said.

About 400 children were infected with the HIV virus, and the son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Seif al Islam, recently told a French newspaper that $400m (€290.3m) would be paid in compensation to the families, financed in the form of debt remission.

Seif al Islam heads the Gaddafi International Foundation for Charity Associations, which has steered negotiations to resolve the legal deadlock over the medics' fate.

Bulgaria and other eastern European countries have denied they would cancel Libyan debts to secure the medics' release, but Bulgaria's foreign minister acknowledged today that his country was considering participating in an international fund for humanitarian aid to Libya.

Jailed since 1999, the nurses and doctor denied infecting the children and said their confessions were extracted under torture.

Experts and outside scientific reports have said the children were contaminated as a result of unhygienic conditions in the hospital where the medics worked. Fifty of the infected children have died.

The Libyan government is under intense international pressure to free the six. The case has become a sticking point in the regime's attempts to rebuild ties with the US and Europe.

Libyan officials have said the families' acceptance of a compensation settlement could allow the death sentence to be withdrawn.

Often referred to as "blood money," compensation for death or suffering is a legal provision in the traditional Islamic code that is widespread in parts of the Middle East.