Libyan judicial council postpones decision in case of six medical workers

Libya's highest judicial authority on Monday postponed a decision on the case of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor who are facing death sentences after being convicted of infecting children with the AIDS virus.

The Supreme Judiciary Council would review the case Tuesday and decide whether to approve or reject the convictions or set lighter sentences, a judicial official said.

The official said the council was unable to discuss the case Monday as scheduled because it had other cases to review. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, did not provide more details.

Libya's Supreme Court last week upheld the death sentences for the medics, who have been jailed since 1999, in an appeal ruling.

Meanwhile, a proposal has been under way to compensate the families of the children, which could pave the way for their release, Libyan officials have said.

The six medical workers deny having infected more than 400 children and say their confessions were extracted under torture. Experts and outside scientific reports have said the children were contaminated as a result of unhygienic conditions at a hospital in the northeastern coastal city of Benghazi. Fifty of the infected children died.

Idriss Lagha, head of the Libyan-based Association for the Families of HIV-Infected Children, said Saturday that a settlement was being finalized involving the transfer of money to a fund through the remission of debt to Bulgaria and several other eastern European countries. The debt dates back to the Cold War, Lagha said.

The son of longtime Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, Seif al Islam, also has told a French newspaper that $400 million in compensation would be paid to the families and would be financed in the form of debt remission.

Al Islam, who heads a powerful Libyan association that has worked to resolve the deadlock, told Le Figaro newspaper that the countries involved were Bulgaria, Slovakia, Croatia and the Czech Republic.

But government officials from Bulgaria and other nations reportedly involved in the deal have all denied they were sending cash to the families. Bulgaria has said it would not pay compensations, because it would imply the medics were guilty.

Libya is under intense international pressure to free the medical workers, and official here have said the families' acceptance of a compensation settlement was key to resolving the deadlock and would 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 in the Middle East and North Africa.