Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2005. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Associated Press - December 24, 2005
Veselin Toshkov
President Georgi Parvanov added, however, that the medical workers' release "will come at a very high price," without elaborating.
Libya's Supreme Court was scheduled to hold an appeals hearing Sunday.
"I have reasons to expect a development of the negotiation process which would lead to a breakthrough, to a positive result," Parvanov said in comments published Saturday in the 24 Hours daily newspaper.
The six were convicted in May 2004 of deliberately infecting about 400 children with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, as part of an experiment at a hospital in the Libyan city of Benghazi. They were sentenced to death by firing squad.
Human rights groups and others allege that Libya concocted the charges to cover up unhygienic practices in its hospitals that led to the infections.
Some analysts and commentators believe that negotiators are seeking a way for Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to end the case and thus preserve his efforts to build closer ties with the West, while still saving face at home.
Those efforts got a boost Thursday with an agreement to set up an international fund to pay out financial assistance to the families of the children infected with HIV.
Officials from Bulgaria, the United States, Britain and the European Union agreed with the Libyans to set up a non-governmental agency to collect and distribute aid to the families.
In previous talks, Bulgaria rejected paying compensation to the families of the infected children, saying that would imply the medical workers' guilt.
Bulgarian state radio on Saturday quoted Idris Laga, a Libyan representative of the parents of the infected children, as saying that on Dec. 28 the Libyan side will announce the amount of compensation requested by the families.
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