TRIPOLI (Reuters) -- Efforts to free six foreign medics sentenced to death for infecting Libyan children with HIV may be near a conclusion after "positive" European initiatives, a son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said on Sunday.

Speaking after talks with European Union External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Saif al-Islam told reporters: "There are positive initiatives from the European side. "We are in the last mile of a marathon race and we are in the most difficult stage."