Saif al-Islam Qaddafi runs the Qaddafi Humanitarian Foundation

Five Bulgarian nurses who were sentenced to death in Libya for deliberately infecting children with the HIV virus will not be executed, the son of Libyan leader Moamer Qaddafi said Saturday.

Saif al-Islam Qaddafi guaranteed that the women would not be executed in an interview in Paris. The 33-year-old engineer runs the Qaddafi Humanitarian Foundation.

The women and a Palestinian doctor have been held in Libya for the past eight years. The death sentences against the group were confirmed by a Libyan court shortly before Christmas 2006.

They are accused of deliberately infecting 400 Libyan children with the HIV virus in a hospital in the port city of Benghazi. AIDS experts have said that the epidemic broke out before the Bulgarian nurses arrived at the children's hospital.

The case was handled by Libya's Supreme Court. The European Union, which Bulgaria joined on January 1, is campaigning for the release of the medics.

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