Mrs Sarkozy appeals for medics' release

Tripoli: A top European Commission official accompanied by France's first lady, has traveled to Libya to seek the release of the medics accused of infecting children with HIV.

Cecelia Sarkozy and EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner arrived in the North African state on Sunday.

"The European Commission hopes that this situation, which is so painful and has lasted so long, can be resolved in a humane spirit," the European Union's executive said in a statement.

Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were accused of deliberately infecting 480 children with HIV and given the death sentence. They have been imprisoned in the country since 1999. The six say that confessions were tortured out of them.

Last week, Libya's Higher Judicial Council commuted the death sentences to life imprisonment. This means they can return to their home country under a prisoner exchange agreement made in 1984.