Switzerland apologises to Libya

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Swissinfo

Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz has apologised in Tripoli for the arrest in 2008 of one of the sons of the Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi.

Two Swiss businessmen currently detained in Libya would be released "soon", according to a finance ministry statement.

"We are apologising for what happened to Hannibal Gaddafi and the two sides agreed to form a committee to discuss the matter," Merz was quoted by Reuters news agency at a press conference in the Libyan capital.Libyan Prime Minister al-Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi said the two countries had agreed on a "normalisation" of their relationship, a decision that was confirmed by Merz.

Relations between the countries have been strained since last July when Hannibal Gaddafi and his wife were arrested in Geneva, charged with assaulting two domestic employees. The charges were later dropped, but Libya has since been restricting Swiss business activities in the country.In its statement on Thursday, the finance ministry said both countries would set up an independent arbitration to look into the circumstances surrounding the arrest, and that Switzerland was "prepared to apologise for the improper and unnecessary arrest of Hannibal Gaddafi and his family by the Geneva police".

Merz told a journalist from the AFP news agency that the Libyans had promised him that the two Swiss hostages would be released before September 1.Oil supplies

Geneva's prosecutor dropped the case in September last year following the withdrawal by the plaintiffs of their formal complaint after they reached an undisclosed settlement with the Gaddafis.

Charles Poncet, a Geneva lawyer representing Libya and the Gaddafis, said on Thursday he was "very happy" that Bern and Tripoli had managed to overcome their differences. He added that a hearing on the civil suit due next month would be "suspended" as a first step and "certainly withdrawn".

Geneva authorities had rejected Libyan calls for an apology. "We have found that the rule of law was respected, that international conventions were not violated and in the final analysis, there was perhaps a problem of a lack of tact," the cantonal government president, David Hiler, said in January.

Libya cut back oil supplies to Switzerland and withdrew more than $5 billion in assets from Swiss banks in 2008 over the incident.

Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey last month said Switzerland intended to seek a meeting with the Libyan leader in order to help settle the dispute.

Gaddafi is still not willing to play nice. I'm disappointed that our politicians have demonstrated a lack of spine in this row with Libya. The two businessmen have been held there since August 2008, for awhile in unacceptable conditions, and the only mistake they made was being in the wrong country at the wrong time.