A Libyan court postponed its verdict yesterday on six Bulgarian medics and a Palestinian doctor charged with infecting hundreds of children with the deadly HIV virus, court officials said.

A prosecutor is seeking the death penalty for the five women and two men, who were detained in Tripoli in 1999 and accused of infecting 426 Libyan children at a Benghazi hospital with blood products contaminated with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

A court official told reporters one of the judges hearing the case had fallen ill and the verdict in the five-year-old trial would now be delivered on May 6.

More than 40 of the children have died since 1999, adding to already heated emotions in both countries over the case.

The issue has also gained attention as Libya tries to emerge from diplomatic isolation by abandoning its nuclear arms programme and push for a thaw in ties with the United States and Britain.

Relatives of the children have demanded harsh sentences, but the Bulgarian officials and the medics themselves argue that they are not to blame for the epidemic.

All the defendants pleaded not guilty, as have nine Libyans who faced similar charges.

Last year Luc Montagnier, the French doctor credited with first discovering the HIV virus, said the epidemic first emerged in the hospital in 1997, a year before the medics arrived, probably due to unsanitary conditions.

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi once accused the six of intentionally infecting the children as part of a US-Israeli plot to undermine his regime.