Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor, who were given life sentence in Libya for allegedly contaminating children with the AIDS virus, were on their way to Sofia, capital of Bulgaria, French presidential palace announced on Tuesday.

"The aircraft of the French republic has just taken off from Libya for Sofia carrying Mrs. Cecilia Sarkozy, Mrs. Benita Ferrero-Waldner, Mr. Claude Gueant, the nurses and the Palestinian doctor," a statement said.

The six medics, who had been under arrest since 1999, were sentenced to death for deliberately causing an HIV outbreak at a Benghazi hospital and infecting 426 children with the virus.

They were freed after a delegation, including France's first lady Cecilia Sarkozy, European Union Commissioner for Foreign Affairs Benita Ferrero-Waldner and chief French presidential aide Claude Gueant, visited Tripoli on Sunday to negotiate their release.

The medics, who have been in jail since 1999, have denied the charges against them and said their confessions were extracted under torture.

The families of the 462 HIV victims received US$one million each in the settlement from a fund set up by the Gaddafi Foundation, a charity run by a son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, that a spokesman for the families said was financed by the EU, the United States, Bulgaria and Libya.

Bulgaria made an official request on Thursday for Tripoli to repatriate the medics to serve their sentences in Bulgaria.

It granted citizenship to the Palestinian doctor, Ashraf al-Hazouz, last month, and so he would also have the right to stay in Bulgaria.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry announced the plane was expected to land in Sofia at 9:45 AM local time (6:45 GMT).

(Xinhua News Agency July 24, 2007)