Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Amnesty International’s Swiss branch, which has maintained contact with Swiss businessman Max Goeldi, sentenced to four months in prison in Libya for visa irregularities, is in poor condition, the group told news agency ATS Monday 15 March. His lawyer made a similar statement Sunday. Goeldi initially saw his prison detention as a temporary state while request for clemency was pending, says Amnesty, but Libya’s judicial system has not yet reviewed his case.
Goeldi’s mental state has deteriorated rapidly since he left the Swiss embassy in February, where he had been living for more than 18 months while awaiting sentencing.
Amnesty International a week ago handed Libya 14,000 signatures asking for the country to release the prisoner.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The family of Swiss businessman Max Goeldi, serving a four-month prison sentence in Libya, has appealed to Libyan leader Muammar Qadaffi to release the man. The demand for clemency follows a visit in prison to Goeldi by Hannibal Qadaffi, son of the leader. The visit has given the family some hope that Goeldi will be released sooner, Moritz Goeldi, brother of Max, said Tuesday 2 March on Swiss German public television.
His mother, who celebrated her 80th birthday Monday 1 March, is having a hard time understanding why her son is unable to come home, says Moritz, who noted that Max’s detention in Libya for more than 18 months has been very hard on their mother.
Background, GenevaLunch
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The Swiss government remains silent on Libya, while Libya appears to want to stay in news headlines this week: leader Muammar Qadaffi’s declaration of a jihad or holy war against Switzerland last week was firmly rebuffed as unacceptably by the United Nations and Swiss Muslim leaders. Reports are coming in that some Libyans have taken it more seriously, and that anywhere from 1,000 t0 2,000 of them, depending on who is reporting, have gathered outside the Swiss Embassy in Tripoli. Security forces are guarding the building.
Meanwhile, Hannibal Qadaffi has visited Max Goeldi in prison in Libya, in the presence of reporters.
Rashid Hamdani, left and Max Goeldi, right, at the Swiss embassy in Tripoli in 2009
Tripoli, Libya (GenevaLunch) - The Swiss government remains officially silent but news reports from journalists in Tripoli, including a Reuters reporter, say that Swiss businessman Max Goeldi has surrendered to Libya authorities, to begin a four-month prison sentence. The Swiss will ask for clemency, and if it is granted, Human Rights Watch says, this would be a sign that the political crisis is over between Switzerland and Libya.
Libyan security forces surrounded the Swiss embassy in Tripoli after giving Switzerland a deadline to hand over Goeldi, who has been staying at the embassy. The second Swiss businessman held by Libya but whose charges were recently dropped, Rashid Hamdani from the Lake Geneva region, appears to have been allowed to leave the embassy and is reported to have traveled to Tunisia by car.
Background, GenevaLunch
Links to other sites: Al Jazeera, Amnesty International, Le Temps (Fre), TSR (Fre)
Chinese “dissident” leader Liu Xiaobo has lost his appeal, with a prison sentence of 11 years upheld by Beijing’s High Court. US and EU diplomats who stood outside tdhe court said afterwards that they were disappointed at China’s failure to allow political dissent. The Foreign Ministry spokesperson used the English word “dissident” in a regular news briefing to repeat a frequently used government line that China has laws and there are those who abide by them, and those who don’t – criminals.
Links to other sites: Al Jazeera, Reuters, RTT News
Tripoli, Libya (GenevaLunch) – Rachid Hamdani, one of two Swiss businessmen who have been held by Libya for 18 months, has reportedly had his prison sentence overturned for staying illegally in the country. He and Max Goldi, the other Swiss, appeared Saturday and Sunday in a court to where appeals in their cases were being heard. The two then returned to the Swiss Embassy, where they have been staying. The Swiss government has confirmed the news.
The two are also charged with illegal business activities, and these charges will be heard again 6 and 7 February, according to Hamdani’s lawyer, reports TSR.
Background, GenevaLunch
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© Chappatte, distributed by Globe Cartoon. More cartoons on Chappatte’s web site. Geneva-based Patrick Chappatte works for the International Herald Tribune, for Geneva newspaper Le Temps, and for NZZ am Sonntag. All cartoons reproduced with permission.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Film director Roman Polanski could be released on bail for CHF4.5 million, the Swiss Federal Criminal high court ruled Wednesday 25 November, noting that the amount of money put up plus other security measures are adequate to cover the risk he will flee. The court has asked for his identity papers and he has been told to remain home with electronic surveillance while the US request for extradition is examined, a process that could take some weeks.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Film director Roman Polanski’s request to be freed, while a demand from the United States for his extradition is pending, has been turned down by the Swiss Justice and Police ministry, reports AP, citing spokesperson Guido Falco, who could not be reached for confirmation. An official statement has not yet been issued.
The government reportedly believes there is a risk he will flee. Polanski was jailed following his arrest 26 September at Zurich Airport when he arrived for the Zurich Film Festival. Switzerland and the US have had an extradition treaty covering assistance in criminal matters since 1990. To be extraditable, an offense must be considered a penal crime in both countries.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A 25-year-old Valais woman has been taken to prison, accused of defamation against six people, after telling police in March 2009 that she had been gang-raped by her former boyfriend and five other men in a garage in Carouge. She described in graphic detail the sexual relations that took place, in August 2008, but police became suspicious when she remained vague about the identity of the former boyfriend, whom she clearly knew well.
Bernard Madoff has been sentenced to 150 years in prison in New York, USA. The judge called his crimes “extraordinarily evil” and handed him the sentence asked for by prosecutors, for fraud charges that grew out of his massive Ponzi scheme. Madoff pleaded guilty to the charges: securities fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, investment adviser fraud, three counts of money laundering, false statements, perjury, false filings with the SEC, theft from an employee benefit plan. Bloomberg, New York Times
US freelance journalist Roxana Saberi, sentenced to eight years in prison in Iran for spying and working without press credentials, has been freed after a court heard her appeal and reduced the sentence to a suspended two-year term, according to National Public Radio. She joined her parents and will return to the family’s home in North Dakota in coming days, according to US officials. The New York Times argues that the court’s ruling was political, with Iran-US relations a hot issue in Iran, with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad facing an election in a month, but Saberi’s lawyer tells NPR that the sentence was reduced for legal reasons. Al Jazeera, Yahoo news
Roxana Saberi, who holds dual US and Iranian citizenship, has been sentenced by an Iranian court to eight years in prison for spying. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier in April called on Iran to release her. Saberi grew up in the US where she played soccer for Concordia College in Minnesota and was named Miss North Dakota in 1997. She has spent the past six years in Iran working on a book. BBC, Freeroxana.net, Huffington Post
This much is clear: OJ Simpson, fallen football hero who got away with (his ex-wife’s) murder, has a long stretch in prison ahead of him, possibly up to 33 years, but he becomes eligible for parole in nine years. What is less clear, judging by big media reports that vary hugely, is the extent to which he’s a bad guy. The Chicago Tribune wrote a tear-jerker, Reuters paints him a little less sympathetically and quotes the sentencing judge as saying, “”While at this case bail hearing, I said to Mr Simpson that I didn’t know if he was arrogant or ignorant or both. Then during the trial and through this proceeding, I got the answer: it was both.” The UK’s Guardian takes a cooler, America-hoped-for-it approach.
Switzerland (SwissInfo, Eng) – European human rights experts began today a two-week inspection of Swiss detention facilities. The Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) will report on the treatment of inmates at facilities across Switzerland, including juvenile centres, prisons, and cantonal police jails.
Inspectors have noted problems of overcrowding in Swiss prisons, especially in Geneva’s Champ-Dollon prison, which has 480 inmates, nearly twice the number it was designed to hold. Prisoners at Champ-Dollon in August staged a protest against overcrowding.
This is the fifth visit by the CPT to Switzerland since 1991. Four
years ago, inspectors examined the treatment of foreign nationals awaiting deportation at
Zurich airport.
Bern, Lausanne, Geneva, Switzerland (RSR, Fre) – Geneva, Vaud and Ticino cantons say they are happy with their trial systems of electronic bracelets for prisoners who serve short sentences at home, and police groups are backing them, but this might not be enough for them to get the backing of the Swiss Federal Council. The cabinet will make a final decision once the public consultation process on the bracelets ends, in two days. First indications are that the cabinet believes the prison-at-home system does not fit a new penal code which proposes alternatives to short-term sentences, such as community work.
