Tripoli rejected the appeal of US President George Bush for the release of the five Bulgarian nurses facing the death penalty in Libya after being found guilty of deliberately infecting with HIV/AIDS some 426 children in a Benghazi hospital.

Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel Rahman Shalgam rejected the call by US President George Bush for Tripoli to spare the lives of the Bulgarian nurses.

"This is a legal matter which cannot be influenced by any political decision," the minister told the Arab satellite television network, Al Jazeera.

In Washington, where he was meeting Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov, Bush called on Libya to free the nurses. "There should be no confusion in the Libyan government's mind that those nurses ought to be, not only spared their life, but out of prison," Bush told reporters. "We will continue to make that message perfectly clear."

The case of the Bulgarian medics sentenced to death over charges of deliberate AIDS infection of more than 400 children in Libya has topped prominently the talks between the two countries' heads of state on Monday.

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