CAIRO, Dec 23, 2006 (AFP) - The Arab League on Saturday urged all parties involved in the case of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor sentenced to death by a Libyan court in an AIDS case not to politicise the issue.

The 22-member body called on "all parties to refrain from politicising the issue, particularly as the defendants still have an opportunity to appeal the case."

A Libyan court on Tuesday sentenced to death the five nurses and the doctor -- for the second time -- on charges of intentionally giving AIDS-tainted blood to more than 400 children at the Al-Fateh Hospital in the northern town of Benghazi.

More than 50 of the children have since died.

The League stressed its support for the Libyan children and their families but called on all parties to "cooperate in order to reduce the effects of this painful human catastrophe and its possible outcomes."

The six defendants, who pleaded not guilty, were originally sentenced in May 2004 to die before a firing squad. The supreme court then ordered a retrial following a December 2005 appeal.

The case has strained relations between Tripoli and the West as the North African state works its way back into the international fold after renouncing its efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction in 2003.

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