Libya's Supreme Court has reserved its judgment on an appeal by six foreigners sentenced to death for infecting Libyan children with HIV. The judgment is expected on 11 July.
The five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were convicted in December of deliberately infecting 426 children.
Separately, Driss Lagha, chairman of the Association for the Families of the HIV-infected Children, said a deal on financial compensation might be wrapped up in the next few days in talks between the European Union and the families.
If a deal is agreed in the coming days, it will not affect the court's decision.
The six, who have been in jail since 1999, appealed to the Supreme Court saying they are innocent and were tortured into confessing. The US and the EU have stepped up pressure on Tripoli to release them.
The Supreme Court is widely expected to confirm the death sentences, a move that would leave the fate of the six in the hands of Libya's High Judicial Council, a government-led body which has the power to commute sentences.
Political analysts say the council would be likely to let the nurses return to Bulgaria if a deal to compensate the families of the HIV-infected children was reached.
Bulgaria said yesterday it had granted citizenship to the Palestinian doctor, Ashraf Alhajouj, a decision that could help bring him out of Libya if the sentences are eventually commuted.
The five nurses, Nasya Nenova, Snezhana Dimitrova, Valentina Siropolu, Christiana Valcheva and Valia Cherveniashka, worked along with Mr Alhajouj at a hospital in the country's second city, Benghazi, where the injections occurred in the late 1990s.
They were first arrested in February 1999 and were sentenced to death in May 2004 after being convicted of infecting the children with HIV-tainted blood. 58 children have since died.
The accused have denied the charges and foreign health experts have said the AIDS epidemic in Benghazi was probably the result of poor hygiene.
The case has sparked mounting criticism from the EU and the US and hindered Libya's efforts at rapprochement with the West after Mr Gaddhafi's regime renounced efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction in December 2003.
US President George W Bush appealed for the release of the medics last week during a visit to Bulgaria.
The five nurses are said to have suffered depression and other mental stress during their lengthy wait on death row.
