Libya's Supreme Court could rule by the end of the year on the fate of five Bulgarian nurses sentenced to death for deliberately infecting children with the HIV virus, a Bulgarian Foreign Ministry official said. The nurses, and a Palestinian doctor, were convicted of intentionally infecting 426 children with the HIV virus that causes AIDS. About 50 of the children have died. The appeal comes amid increased optimism the nurses could be released after Libya and Bulgaria, the European Union and the United States agreed to set up a fund to provide financial and other help for the sick children and their families. Libya has suggested the verdicts could be quashed if the infected youngsters and their parents receive ample humanitarian aid. "Our expectations are that on Christmas day the court will just have a hearing. But it may hold another session in the next few days and issue a final verdict," Foreign Ministry spokesman Dimitar Tsanchev told Reuters. The medical workers, in custody since 1999, face death by firing squad for infecting the children with the HIV virus in a hospital of the Mediterranean port of Benghazi.
