"The High Judicial Council decided to commute the death
sentences against the five Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian
doctor to life-imprisonment terms," the council said in a brief
statement on Tuesday.

The decision was greeted with relief by the EU and the US even as critics say they would have liked the medics, who say they are innocent, to be pardoned.

Bulgaria said it would ask Libya to transfer the six medics to Sofia.

"This decision is a big step ... For us the case will end once they come back to Bulgaria," Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin told reporters.

He said the decision of Libya's High Judicial Council to commute the death sentences to life imprisonment allowed Sofia to use an agreement with Tripoli on exchange of prisoners and request the transfer of the five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor, who has received Bulgarian citizenship.

"Tomorrow morning we will start working on implementing the
transfer of the medics," Kalfin said.

Sussanah Sherkin, deputy director of Physicians for Human Rights said she hoped the medics would be pardoned.

"We can only hope in the hours ahead a pardon will be issued
and this ordeal will be over," she said. "The entire world is watching this processs and we are very hopeful given all of the engagement of world leaders, human rights groups and the Bulgarians in this case."

Relatives of HIV children drop death sentence demand

Libya's decision followed news that relatives of the Libyan HIV-infected children had agreed to drop their demand that five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor, all of whom were convicted in December, be executed.

"We have notified in writing that the families have relinquished their demand for the execution" of the six medics, Idriss Lagha, the
head of the Libyan-based Association for the Families of HIV-Infected Children, told The Associated Press.

Lagha said the families had renounced asking for the death of the
medics because they had received all the compensation money
they were due under a settlement reached last week. "All the families have received their cash transfer, one million dollars for each infection," Lagha told AP.

Earlier, Libya had said it had given checks to more than 50 percent of the families whose children were killed by the AIDS virus.

Medics say they are innocent

The nurses, who have been in jail since 1999, maintain their innocence and have said they confessed to the accusations under torture.

Foreign experts familiar with Libya have blamed the country's poor health care system and unhygienic conditions for the infections that have led to 56 children's deaths, prompting widespread anger in Libya.

The victims' families have said the case was part of a Western attempt to undermine Muslims and Libya.

About $1 million per family

The deal that pushed the council to commute the sentences calls for over $400 million (290 million euros) to be given to at least 426 children infected with the AIDS causing HIV virus, according to the Gadhafi Foundation which has worked to resolve the case that has been a strain on Libya's relations with the European Union and United States for the last eight years.

EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said Tuesday she was still hoping for the medics' release.

"I do hope that the high judicial council today would come out with a ruling and I do hope of course for clemency for the Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian medic," she told reporters in Brussels earlier.

The European Commission, however, has rejected claims that it played a political role in the deal, though it has committed 2.5 million euros to the compensation fund that was created by Tripoli and Sofia in 2005.