Tripoli: Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi`s son Hannibal on Thursday dismissed a Swiss regional government`s compensation offer to ease a two-year diplomatic row over his arrest.
"I am not seeking financial compensation and it will not do me justice," said Hannibal Gaddafi, who lashed out at Switzerland and its foreign minister, calling for her to be thrown into Lake Geneva.
"International arbitration is our just demand and there is no doubt that it’s coming," he said.
Hannibal and his pregnant wife were briefly arrested in July 2008 on suspicion of mistreating two of their domestic staff at a Geneva hotel.
Gaddafi’s son insisted that international arbitration "will prove my innocence of all the accusations”.
On Wednesday, Geneva canton`s government confirmed it had filed court papers about the affair which caused Libya to impose sanctions while two Swiss businessmen were arrested in Tripoli, one of whom is still being held.
Swiss public television channel SFTV on Tuesday showed court documents in which the Geneva government accepted responsibility for the leak to a newspaper of Hannibal`s police mugshots.
"The Swiss intransigence and attempts to buy time is like betting on a horse that is going to lose," said Hannibal, Gaddafi’s third-eldest son.
The Geneva State Council has asked the court "to allocate ... an equitable indemnity" to Hannibal, adding that mugshots of Gaddafi’s son should not have "reached the Tribune de Geneve" newspaper.
It also called on the court to determine the newspaper`s role and share in the unspecified damages, according to the document.
The canton`s statement confirming the case said it was in response to proceedings launched by Hannibal. It also pledged to punish the source of the leak.
The Geneva government has steadfastly refused to apologise for the arrest.
Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz`s apology last August to Libya for an "unjust arrest" sparked a bitter domestic political row and ultimately failed to resolve the standoff, which instead escalated.
One of two detained Swiss businessmen was released last month but the other, ABB employee Max Goeldi, is serving a four-month jail term in Libya on visa offences.
Hannibal also slammed Switzerland, describing it as a country that provides financial haven to "drug traffickers, organised crime and war lords".
"How can we consider it a country of law and justice?" he asked.
And he lambasted Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey, accusing her of leaking the photos for election purposes and to embarrass the Swiss president.
"She should be ashamed of herself," Hannibal said. "I urge her to leave politics and quit the government."
He called on the Swiss people "to throw the Swiss foreign minister into Lake Geneva because this government does not serve their interests, nor does it protect their reputation."
Diplomats have said that the publication of photographs of a dishevelled Hannibal in the Swiss newspaper last September had added to the Gaddafi family`s anger over the case.
Bureau Report
