TRIPOLI (AFP) - Relatives of children infected with the AIDS virus staged an anti-US demonstration in Tripoli, the day after Washington called for the release of five Bulgarian nurses convicted of infecting them.

Around 100 people took part in the demonstration outside United Nations offices in the Libyan capital, carrying placards such as US President George W. "Bush defends the killers", "Death to the United States".

The families were protesting against Bush"s declaration Monday that the nurses, sentenced to death in 2004 for deliberately infecting the children, should be released.

"There should be no confusion in the Libyan government"s mind that those nurses ought to be, not only spared their life, but out of prison," Bush told reporters. "We will continue to make that message perfectly clear."

The five nurses and a Palestinian doctor are under death sentence in a Libyan jail and could face a firing squad. They were convicted, after six-and-a-half years in jail, of deliberately infecting children with the AIDS virus at a hospital in Benghazi, in northern Libya.

Of the 380 children infected, 47 have died.

The Libyan high court is due to decide on November 15 whether the nurses appeal against the death penalty can be heard.