The lawyers of the Bulgarian defendants in the HIV trial in Libya have been denied access to their clients, locked up at Judeyda prison.

Plamen Yalnuzov, Hari Haralampiev, Georgi Gatev waited more than an hour outside the prison to meet the five Bulgarian nurses as initially scheduled, but were informed they might meet them on Wednesday.

Libya's Supreme Court convenes Tuesday for the appeal hearing against the death sentences passed on five Bulgarian nurses for allegedly infecting with AIDS more than 400 Libyan children.

Bulgaria's diplomatic mission in Libya specified that the Bulgarian nurses are not required to attend the court session.

A five-member panel of the Supreme Cassation Court will convene at 10 am Bulgarian time on Tuesday. Under local legislation the court is due to render its ruling within two months.

In May 2004 Libya found five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor guilty of having caused the death of 40 children and of infecting more than 400 others with HIV at a Benghazi hospital.