Tripoli, February 22: One of two Swiss nationals held in Tripoli for 19 months was to hand himself in to Libyan authorities on Monday to serve out a jail term, as the other prepared to leave the country, their lawyer said.
The pair have been caught in a bitter diplomatic row between Tripoli and Bern since the brief arrest in July 2008 of Hannibal Gathafi, a son of Libyan leader Moamer Gathafi, at a Geneva hotel with his wife.
Max Goeldi was due to leave his shelter at the Swiss embassy and surrender to Libyan authorities, following an ultimatum to serve out a four-month sentence for overstaying his visa, lawyer Salah Zahaf said.
“He will leave the embassy and turn himself in voluntarily,” Zahaf said, adding that he expected his client to be taken to Ain Zara prison near Tripoli.
Goeldi, a senior manager at Swedish-Swiss engineering giant ABB, is to be held in a prison which is open to visitors and where he can receive medical care and the services of a translator, the lawyer said.
The defence, however, will lodge an appeal for a pardon, Zahaf said.
The other Libyan businessman, Rashid Hamdani, was to be allowed to leave the country within hours after being stranded in the African nation like Goeldi for the past 19 months.
“He is getting ready to leave the country,” Zahaf said. “We are now going to the passport service to get his (Libyan) exit visa. Rashid will leave right after that for Tunisia.”
Zahaf made the announcements just hours after Libya gave the Swiss embassy in Tripoli until midday (1000 GMT) on Monday to hand over Goeldi.
The official JANA news agency said the foreign ministry issued the ultimatum to European Union ambassadors posted in Tripoli at a meeting on Sunday night, warning of measures against the Swiss mission if Goeldi was not handed over.
Goeldi, who has taken refuge in his country’s embassy, “must report to police and serve his sentence,” Libyan Foreign Minister Mussa Kussa told the Arab satellite Al-Jazeera.
The Swiss businessman faces a four-month sentence for overstaying his visa and an 800-dollar fine for illegal business activities.
Relations between Libya and Switzerland have been strained since July 2008 when Hannibal Gathafi was arrested in Geneva after two domestic workers complained he had mistreated them.
The row escalated when Libya detained and confiscated the passports of Hamdani and Goeldi, and deepened again last year when a tentative deal between the two countries fell apart.
Goeldi and Hamdani were both later convicted of identical charges but an appeal court dropped the charges against Hamdani.
Last week, the Libyan authorities returned Hamdani’s passport but without the necessary exit visa, his lawyer said on Sunday.
A condition for obtaining the visa is that Hamdani be declared free of any tax obligations, which normally would require clearance by an official after examining the status of Hamdani’s company, PME Suisse.
The row between Libya and Switzerland took a new turn earlier this month — and expanded to include other European countries — when Tripoli decided to deny entry to citizens of Europe’s 25-state Schengen free-travel zone.
The move was in retaliation against visa restrictions by Switzerland, which is a member of the Schengen zone.
Switzerland last autumn reportedly listed 186 senior Libyans, including Gathafi and the foreign minister, who would be denied access to Swiss territory.
Last week, Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey said she was pressing ahead with diplomatic efforts to resolve the standoff, after a meeting in Madrid with her Libyan counterpart Koussa for the first time in several months.
—Agencies