Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2007. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
BBC News - July 19, 2007
The five nurses and one doctor were convicted of intentionally sparking an HIV outbreak in a children's hospital.
The six, who say torture was used to extract their confessions, have been imprisoned in Libya since 1999.
Bulgaria said that all necessary papers relating to the transfer request had been sent to the Libyan authorities.
Prisoner exchange deal
The death sentences imposed on the five nurses and Palestinian doctor - who all hold Bulgarian citizenship - were downgraded to life in prison on Tuesday by Libya's High Judicial Council, a semi-political body.
The Palestinian doctor has been granted Bulgarian citizenship to allow him to benefit from any transfer deal.
Bulgaria's prime minister has said the case will only be considered closed "after the medics return to Bulgarian soil".
"We are working for it to happen as soon as possible," Serge Stanishev told reporters on Wednesday.
Bulgaria's prosecutor general said that, under a 1984 prisoner exchange agreement, citizens could serve the rest of their sentences in Bulgaria.
Libya has indicated that it is considering releasing the six.
"In return (for a transfer), improving the conditions of the infected children and their families should be taken into account," Foreign Minister Abdel-Rahman Shalqam told the Associated Press news agency.
'Poor hygiene'
The Libyan decision to commute the sentences came after a compensation deal was agreed by the parents of the 483 infected children, reportedly worth $1m (500,000 pounds) per child.
A further obstacle was cleared on Wednesday when another Libyan court cleared the six of defamation, a charge brought by a senior police officer after they claimed their initial confessions had been extracted under torture.
The medics were convicted of deliberately injecting 438 children with HIV-tainted blood. Fifty-six of them have since died.
Foreign experts say the infections started before the medics arrived at the hospital, and are more likely to have been a result of poor hygiene.
Bulgaria, its allies in the EU, and the United States say Libya has used the case to deflect criticism from its run-down health service.
They have also suggested that not freeing the medics could carry a diplomatic price for Liyba's leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, who has been seeking to emerge from more than three decades of diplomatic isolation.
A French source at the Elysee Palace in Paris said President Nicolas Sarkozy had been personally invited to visit Libya by Col Gaddafi but would make the trip only after the medics' case had been fully resolved.
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TRIAL IN DATES
1999: 19 Bulgarian medics and a Palestinian doctor are arrested at a Benghazi hospital after an outbreak of HIV/Aids among children. 13 are later freed
May 2004: Libya convicts and sentences five Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor for infecting children with HIV. A Bulgarian doctor is freed
Dec 2005: Libyan Supreme Court overturns the convictions and orders a retrial
Dec 2006: Medics sentenced to death a second time
Feb 2007: Medics appeal to the Libyan Supreme Court
June 2007: Top EU officials hold talks in Libya to try to secure medics' release
11 July 2007: Libya's Supreme Court upholds death sentences
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