Libya lifted death sentences today against five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor convicted of deliberately infecting children with HIV, paving the way for them to be freed after eight years in jail.
The ruling by Libya's highest judicial body, made possible by a financial settlement of $1 million each to the 460 HIV victims' families, fell short of a hoped-for pardon for the medics, who insist they are innocent.
"The High Judicial Council decided to commute the death sentences against the five Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor to life-imprisonment terms," the judicial body said in a statement.
Bulgaria's allies the United States and the European Union have demanded the nurses be freed, and the case has been a major stumbling block to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's return to the international stage after decades of diplomatic isolation.
Bulgarian prosecutors said they were working to bring all six medics to the Balkan country, a move allowed under a 1984 agreement with Libya. Officials in Sofia have said Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov could then pardon them.
"We will do everything necessary for them to come home," said Margarita Popova, spokeswoman of Bulgaria's chief prosecutor's office. She could not say how long the process would take.
The six were sentenced to death last year after being convicted of intentionally starting an HIV epidemic at a children's hospital in the city of Benghazi.
The medics say confessions central to their case were extracted under torture and that they are innocent. Foreign HIV experts say the infections started before the six arrived at the hospital and were more likely to be the result of poor hygiene.
The victims' families have also said the case was part of a Western attempt to undermine Muslims and Libya. Fifty-six of the children have died, arousing widespread anger in the North African country.
Bulgaria, the EU and the United States say Libya has used the medics as scapegoats to deflect criticism of a dilapidated health care sector. A senior US official said today's ruling was "a positive step forward", but not an end to the ordeal.