A Libyan court is due to deliver its verdict on July 11 2007 on an appeal by six Bulgarian medics sentenced to death for infecting 438 children with HIV-tainted blood.

The medics, five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor who has since obtained Bulgarian citizenship, have twice been sentenced to death, in May 2004 and in December 2006.

Negotiations have been delayed over the scale of a financial payment for the victims’ families in an out-of-court settlement that could allow the medics to escape the death penalty, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said. The agreement would then be presented to a higher council of judicial authorities that could decide to commute the death penalty to time in jail.

Because Libya and Bulgaria have an extradition treaty, these sentences could be served in the medics' country of origin.

The EU has expressed its opposition to blackmail and the compensation payment. It has offered support for the victims and their families, as well as the modernisation of the Benghazi medical centre where the infections took place.

AFP quoted Mohammed al-Zwai, a former ambassador to London and a senior Libyan diplomat, as saying that “There will be more flexibility over all the dossiers on hold between the EU and Libya.”

The six defendants have never waivered in protesting their innocence. They have maintained that they were tortured to confess. Foreign medics blame the epidemic in Benghazi on poor hygiene.