Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland’s woes with Libya continue this week, with Tripoli postponing the trials of two Swiss businessmen. The two are to stand trial for visa and tax irregularities, Libya has said. They were arrested shortly after the arrest in Geneva in July 2008 of Hannibal Qadaffi, son of the country’s leader. Libya in early January issued a list of reasons why the son should not have been arrested; it continues to argue, as it did in 2008, that he should have received diplomatic immunity.
The son is reported 6 January by Swiss media to have hosted singer Beyoncé for New Year’s Eve festivities at the Nikki Beach Club in Saint-Barthélemy, the Antilles, a week after he avoided police charges in Britain.
He and his family left London, where he used diplomatic immunity to avoid charges after his wife landed in a hospital following what appears to have been a family dispute, initally reported by the Daily Mail.
Swiss media, including World Radio (WRS) and most French and German language media, saw their Internet traffic jump when they covered the London incident but UK media, including tabloids, were surprisingly quiet and the incident went virtually unreported: the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph were the exceptions. In Switzerland, Blick and Bluewin devoted considerable space to the story.
The Qadaffis in mid-December took the Tribune de Geneve to court in Geneva for publishing police mug shots of Hannibal Qadaffi after he was arrested in 2008 in the city.
Background, GenevaLunch
Links to other sites: 20 Minutes, Fre, Huffington Post
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News story, GenevaLunch, 6 January 2010.
Filed under: World news
Tags: Aline, Antilles, Beyonce, Britain, businessmen, Hannibal, kidnapped, Libya, London, Muamm, Qadaffi, Switzerland, trials, UK, wife