Libya confirms compensation deal in AIDS case

Families of Libyan children infected with AIDS have accepted compensation topping 460 million dollars, a Libyan foundation confirmed on Sunday, which could lead to a death sentence on six foreign medics being lifted.

Libya's top legal body is expected to examine the deal on Monday, and could rule that the five Bulgarian nurses and Palestinian doctor on death row for infecting the children may serve prison time rather than face execution.

"The families have accepted compensation in the order of a million dollars for each victim," said Salah Abdessalem, director of the charitable Kadhafi Foundation run by Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi's son Seif al-Islam.

The medics have been on death row since 2004 after being convicted of deliberately infecting 438 children with HIV-tainted blood. Fifty-six have since died.

The death sentence was confirmed by the supreme court on Wednesday, eight years after the six were first detained.

Libya's Supreme Judicial Council, due to meet on Monday, can modify the supreme court verdict or even cancel it.

But Idriss Lagha, the spokesman for the families, insisted on Sunday: "An agreement will not be signed until the money has been paid to the families."

He said the number of victims had increased to almost 460 because a number of mothers had been infected by their children. Among them are eight Palestinians, two Egyptians, two Syrians, two Sudanese and a Moroccan, he said.

Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel Rahman Shalgham said on Wednesday the compensation would come from "certain European countries and charitable organisations, and from the Libyan state."

A special fund for the AIDS victims was set up by Libya and Bulgaria in 2005 under the aegis of the EU.

Shalgham refused to reveal how much money was already in the fund, except to say it ran into "hundreds of millions of dollars."

As employer of the six medics, the government would pay between 250,000 euros (345,000 dollars) and 600,000 euros (827,000 dollars) to the family of each victim.

Nurses Snezhana Dimitrova, Nasya Nenova, Valya Cherveniashka, Valentina Siropulo and Kristiana Valcheva and Palestinian doctor Ashraf Juma Hajuj -- who now has Bulgarian nationality -- have been behind bars since February 1999 but have always protested their innocence.

On Thursday the International AIDS Society expressed "shock and dismay" at the confirmation of the death penalty for the six.

The Geneva-based body, which represents more than 11,000 health workers in upwards of 170 countries, said evidence suggested the children had become infected because of insanitary conditions at the hospital in Libya's second city of Benghazi before the medics arrived there.

The European Union said on Wednesday it was still hoping a compensation deal could be reached with Libya that would see the death sentences commuted to prison terms which could be served in Bulgaria.