The sum matches the compensation paid by Libya to families of the 270 victims of the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am Am flight over Locherbie in Scotland.

Idriss Lagha, a lawyer for the families, told Bulgarian reporters that five Bulgarian nurses accused of deliberately infecting 426 children with the AIDS virus could have their sentences shortened if the money were paid.

The five nurses and a Palestinian doctor have been in jail for seven years and have been condemned to death for deliberately inoculating the children, 51 of whom have died, with infected vaccine. But on Sunday the Libyan supreme court overturned the conviction and ordered a retrial.

Lagha said that if the families were compensated they could ask for lighter sentences which might permit the nurses to serve their time in Bulgarian prisons.

Last week the two countries said they had set up a fund to help Libya fight AIDS and to help the families of ill and dead children with the cooperation of Britain, the European Union and the United States.

Bulgaria says its nurses are innocent and will not hear talk of compensation, but will help in humanitarin action against AIDS in Libya.

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