Swiss businessman at center of diplomatic row leaves Libya, 2nd Swiss man still detained

Swiss man in diplomatic row leaves Libya

GENEVA — A Swiss businessman detained in Libya for more than 19 months has left the country, easing a diplomatic row that began with the 2008 arrest of Moammar Gadhafi’s son in Geneva, the Swiss Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.

But it said a second Swiss man was still being held in Tripoli, as negotiations continue between Switzerland and Libya.

“Rachid Hamdani has left Libya,” ministry spokesman Adrian Sollberger said in a statement.

Local media reported that the 69-year-old employee of a Swiss construction company was driven to Tunisia on Monday night, and Hamdani said Tuesday that he left the country “very quickly” after receiving authorization from Libyan authorities.

“The decision was taken and I was free immediately,” Hamdani said by telephone on Swiss television. National broadcaster TSR said he spoke from the Tunisian resort of Djerba.

Hamdani and 54-year-old Max Goeldi, an employee of engineering firm ABB, were detained days after Geneva police arrested Hannibal Gadhafi and his wife at a luxury hotel for allegedly beating up their servants.

Gadhafi was released after two days, but Libya retaliated by recalling diplomats from Switzerland, taking its money out of Swiss vaults and interrupting oil shipments to the neutral European country.

In 2009, former Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz apologized in Libya and agreed to possible compensation claims. But Switzerland backed out of the deal when Goeldi and Hamdani weren’t allowed to go home.

The dispute took its strangest turn earlier this month when Tripoli responded to a Swiss travel ban on Moammar Gadhafi, his family and ministers by banning citizens of 25 European countries from traveling to Libya. The visa restrictions threatened lucrative work for Europeans in Libya’s booming oil and gas industries, but mediation from Italy and Spain has helped relax the constraints.

Sollberger said Goeldi was still in Libyan custody. He said Swiss officials were trying to secure the return of Goeldi, who has been sentenced to four months in prison by a Libyan court.

Hamdani was allowed to leave after a Libyan appeals court acquitted him earlier this month.

Amnesty International and the United Nations have criticized the detention of both businessmen as political revenge.

Switzerland said negotiations “have been going on for several weeks,” citing talks last week in Madrid and Berlin.

Goeldi’s family said it was relieved that the ordeal for their friend Hamdani was finally ending but sad that Goeldi had yet to be released.

“We are very optimistic that a solution will soon be found that also allows him to return home to his family,” the family said in a statement.