Six foreign medics.

A Libyan court sentenced five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to death on Tuesday for spreading HIV in a Libyan hospital, according to news from Tripoli.

The defendants, who had worked at the Al-Fateh hospital in Libya's Benghazi, was accused of infecting more than 400 children with HIV, 52 of whom had died at the hospital in the late 1990s.

Libyan Justice Minister Ali Omar Hassnaoui said the six may appeal to the supreme court and, if that went against them, to a superior body called the high council of justice.

The six denied the charges and their defense lawyers argued that the children had been infected with HIV due to bad hygiene at the Benghazi hospital before their clients began working at the hospital.

In the wake of the verdict, their lawyers said they planned to appeal against their latest conviction.

The medical workers, who had been detained for nearly seven years, had previously been sentenced to death by firing squad in 2004. But Libya's supreme court quashed the ruling and ordered a retrial following an appeal in December 2005.

Europe and the United States have called Libya to release the defendants, saying that the six were scapegoats for the poor hygiene conditions in the hospital. Bulgaria also contended that the children were infected by unhygienic practices at their Libyan hospital.

Families of the dead children have demanded 15 million dollars in compensation which was rejected by the Bulgarian government, which insists that its nationals are innocent.

Editor: Yan