The relatives of five Bulgarian nurses sentenced to death in Libya have appealed to British authorities to hand over the Lockerbie bomber so their loved ones can be freed, the British Daily Telegraph newspaper reported.

The Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi said in his end of year address that the Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor sentenced to death for infecting Libyan children with HIV would only be released if Scotland set free the Libyan agent sentenced to life in prison for putting a bomb on the Pan-Am flight that exploded over the Scottish village in 1988, killing 259.

"We [the relatives] are begging the British authorities to say yes," said Stanka Nenova, the mother of one condemned nurse, Nasya Nenova. "I just want them to reach an agreement. Our family members are innocent."

Dr Zdravko Georgiev, the husband of detained nurse Kristiana Valcheva, said: "It makes me sick that they are trying to make the UK do this. But I want my wife back."

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