Two doctors -- one Palestinian and one Bulgarian -- and five Bulgarian nurses are accused of infecting 426 children in a Benghazi hospital with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, by injecting them with tainted blood products.

In February the prosecution called for the death sentence for the defendants in the trial which has lasted since February 2000.

Libyan medical experts have testified that 43 of the children allegedly infected have died of AIDS.

The defence has relied on testimony by Luc Montagnier -- the French doctor who first isolated the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) -- that the epidemic had broken out in the hospital before the arrival of the accused.

He blamed the epidemic on poor hygiene.

The defendants, who have been held for five years, have all pleaded not guilty.

Two of the nurses and the Palestinian doctor, who originally made confessions during police interrogations, have since said they were coerced into signing statements which they did not understand.

The European Union has demanded that the accused be discharged.

TERRA.WIRE