Geneva: Libya is refusing to issue visas for visitors from nearly every European country in a bizarre escalation of a dispute that began when Swiss authorities arrested the son of Moammar Gaddafi on suspicion of beating up his servants.
The new restrictions prevent everyone from oil executives to tourists from Europe’s passport-free zone of 25 nations from visiting Libya, which has been trying to shed its image as an international pariah and attract investment from Western companies.
Libyan visas already granted are also no longer valid, European governments said, and a number of Italians were waiting in Tripoli’s airport for a flight to take them home. Libyan government officials refused to comment.
European officials said the move was clearly retaliation for the 25 nations’ cooperation with a Swiss travel blacklist of Gaddafi and his son Hannibal and other relatives, along with Libyan government officials.
Hannibal was held in a Swiss jail for two days after his arrest in July 2008 because he and his wife were accused of beating up their servants in a Geneva hotel. Geneva authorities dropped their criminal investigation after the two servants received compensation from an undisclosed source and withdrew their complaint.
Since then, the Swiss government’s policy toward Libya has vacillated between capitulation and hardball tactics, with both failing to resolve the dispute.
"We don’t have problems with Libya, Switzerland does,” Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini said on Swiss TV. “We are helping Switzerland but it can’t take the rest of Europe hostage.”
PTI
First Published: Wednesday, February 17, 2010, 11:20