SOFIA, Nov 4 (Reuters) - A Libyan court said it would rule in a retrial of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor accused of infecting hundreds of Libyan children with the HIV virus on Dec 19, Bulgarian state radio reported on Saturday.

The medical workers, jailed since 1999, face a possible death sentence on charges for deliberately infecting 426 Libyan children at a Benghazi hospital with the virus that causes AIDS.

"The verdicts of the five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor will be announced on December 19," the state radio BNR reported.

The six, who say they are innocent, were initially sentenced to death by firing squad in May of 2004 on the same charges, but Libya's Supreme Court overturned the convictions last December and ordered the retrial.

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