TRIPOLI, July 18: Six foreign medics reprieved from a death sentence in Libya after an eight-year ordeal over the infection of hundreds of children with HIV-tainted blood were facing an anxious wait on Wednesday as the world called on Tripoli to send them home.

Libya's highest judicial body on Tuesday commuted to life in prison the death sentences of the five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor after a multi-million dollar compensation deal was hammered out with victims' families.

The six, who have been on death row since 2004, could serve out their sentences in Bulgaria, as the two countries have an extradition treaty and the Palestinian was recently granted Bulgarian citizenship.

It was not immediately clear if or when they would be sent home, but Bulgaria's chief prosecutor was due on Wednesday to launch the extradition process.

“From tomorrow, the prosecutor's office will take steps to activate the Bulgarian-Libyan extradition treaty,” spokesman Kamen Mikhov said. “It is a routine procedure that we have launched immediately in other cases.”

Washington and the European Union joined in calling on Tripoli to send the medics home after the final legal hurdle in a case that has dragged on for eight years and strained ties between Libya and the West.

“We urge the Libyan government to now find a way to allow the medics to return home,” US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, who said Washington was “encouraged” by the lifting of the death sentences.

The European Commission described the ruling of the Supreme Judicial Council as a “relief” while adding that the objective remained “their transfer to the EU as soon as possible.” “The decision of Libya's Supreme Judicial Council is a big step in the right direction but for us the case will be over when our compatriots return to Bulgaria,” Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ivaylo Kalfin said.“This decision rules out the worst, the death penalty, and opens the way for triggering a prisoner transfer treaty we have with Libya.”

The medics, who have been behind bars since 1999, were convicted of deliberately injecting 438 children in a Benghazi hospital with HIV-tainted blood. Fifty-six children have since died.

The decision, which overturned a Supreme Court ruling last week, came shortly after the children's families dropped their call for the death penalty following a compensation deal worth millions of dollars.—AFP