Mrs Sarkozy urges medics' release

The imprisonment of the medics caused an international outcry

A top EU official and France's first lady have visited Libya to seek the release of six medics convicted of infecting Libyan children with HIV.

One report said Cecilia Sarkozy, wife of the French president, met Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in Tripoli.

Libya's top court last week commuted the death sentences against the five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor, to life imprisonment.

The government in Bulgaria wants them to be allowed to return home.

It has granted citizenship to the Palestinian doctor so that he may also benefit from any deal to transfer the medics to Bulgaria.

The six, who say torture was used to extract their confessions, have been imprisoned in Libya since 1999, accused of deliberately spreading HIV in a children's hospital.

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.

Mrs Sarkozy travelled to Libya with the European Union's external affairs commissioner, Benita Ferrero-Waldner.

"The European Commission hopes this situation, which is so painful and has continued for so long, can be resolved in a humanitarian spirit," the commission said in a statement.