Parliamentarians from 46 European countries have called on the Libyan authorities to release the five Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian doctor found guilty of deliberately infecting with HIV/AIDS some 426 children in a Benghazi hospital.

In a resolution approved Thursday during its plenary session in Strasbourg, the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) claimed otherwise Libya should grant a fair trial. The document says the medical team should be regarded as completely innocent and said they were "being used as scapegoats for a dilapidated Libyan health system".

The death sentence on clearly innocent people would do nothing to relieve the suffering of the infected children or their families, the parliamentarians said. "Libya has nothing to gain by adding a second tragedy to the first," the resolution states.

The PACE decided to send a delegation to meet the Libyan head of state and follow the medics' appeal, which is due to be decided by the Libyan Supreme Court on November 15.

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