Libya's top legal body is expected to examine the deal on Monday, and could rule that the five Bulgarian nurses and Palestinian doctor on death row for infecting the children may serve prison time rather than face execution.

"The families have accepted compensation in the order of a million dollars for each victim," said Salah Abdessalem, director of the charitable Kadhafi Foundation run by Libyan leader Muammer Gaddafi's son Seif al-Islam.

The medics have been on death row since 2004 after being convicted of deliberately infecting 438 children with HIV-tainted blood. Fifty-six have since died.

The death sentence was confirmed by the supreme court on Wednesday, eight years after the six were first detained.

Libya's Supreme Judicial Council, due to meet on Monday, can modify the supreme court verdict or even cancel it.

But Idriss Lagha, the spokesman for the families, insisted on Sunday: "An agreement will not be signed until the money has been paid to the families."

He said the number of victims had increased to almost 460 because a number of mothers had been infected by their children. Among them are eight Palestinians, two Egyptians, two Syrians, two Sudanese and a Moroccan, he said.

Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel Rahman Shalgham said on Wednesday the compensation would come from "certain European countries and charitable organisations, and from the Libyan state."

A special fund for the AIDS victims was set up by Libya and Bulgaria in 2005 under the aegis of the EU.