Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Monday 20 September is a holiday in much of Switzerland, the Jeûne Fédéral. GenevaLunch, based in Vaud, will be providing limited news coverage. Swiss weekend news highlights include:
SOCIETY – Four people are dead and 17 injured after a woman went on a shooting spree in Loerrach, Germany, near Basel, in a family dispute, setting off an explosion that provoked a fire. Media reports are contradictory, but it appears that the woman shot her former companion, their child and shot at others in a nearby hospital before she was shot dead by police in a shootout (Reuters).
SPORTS – Skier Didier Defago, on crutches Sunday 19 September after surgery for torn knee ligaments Friday, told journalists he has no intention of quitting. The 32-year-old Olympic downhill champion crashed last Wednesday during training in Zermatt, when the tips of his skis touched as he was going 110 kph.
PEOPLE – Russian billionnaire’s Geneva divorce battle now includes one of Florida’s most colourful pieces of property, reports Forbes magazine. Dmitri Rybolovlev, number 79 on Forbes’s list of the world’s wealthiest people, was sued for divorce in Geneva by his wife Elena in 2008. She has now asked the Swiss court to enforce a March court order, according to Forbes, to freeze an 18-bedroom, $48 million (assessed price) home she claims her fertilizer businessman husband is trying to hide behind business structures. The house was sold, reportedly to the couple, by Donald Trump who bought it from another magnate, Abe Gossman, who later went bankrupt.
POLITICS – Switzerland’s efforts to free two Swiss businessmen, Rachid Hamdani and Max Goeldi, have been shrouded in secrecy, but 19 September NZZ newspaper in Zurich reported that a Swiss soldier made a reconnaissance mission to Libya at one point. The newspaper bases its report on a confidential government memo it obtained. The two men were were imprisoned for 1.5 and 2 years respectively by Libya, with Hamdani freed in February 2010 and Goeldi in June 2010. The soldier reportedly traveled as a civilian, with a valid visa.
GENEVA RENTS – Geneva is regularly cited as one of the most expensive cities, with high rent playing a key role, but too much is too much, the president of the finance commission told the Tribune de Geneve, which reports that the justice department is paying CHF196,000 a month rent for a 2,226m2 building on the rue de l’Athenée in central Geneva. It houses, among others, the tribunal for rents and leases.
POLITICS – The US Justice Department announced Friday 17 September that one of the seven people charged with using UBS accounts for tax fraud had been sentenced to the longest prison term yet for such an offense. It also noted that he has been fined $4.4 million for not filing his FBAR forms, “an amount equal to 50 percent of the highest value of his UBS accounts as of December 31 for the years in which he failed to file FBAR.” The lengthy Justice Department news release notes: “Federico Hernandez, a Manhattan-based financial adviser, was sentenced today to 12 months’ imprisonment for hiding $8.8 million from the IRS by using sham companies to conceal his ownership of secret Swiss bank accounts held at UBS AG. Hernandez was one of seven US taxpayers charged on April 15, 2010, with filing false tax returns and related crimes for hiding Swiss bank accounts from the IRS. Hernandez pled guilty that same day to filing five false tax returns. In addition to the sentence of imprisonment, US District Judge Denny Chin imposed a sentence of six months’ home confinement. Hernandez also agreed to pay a civil penalty of $4.4 million. The sentence imposed on Hernandez is the longest term of imprisonment to date for hiding a UBS bank account from the IRS.
Update 21:15 Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swiss businessman Max Goeldi has surrendered to Libyan authorities and will begin serving his four-month prison sentence for visa violations. His countryman Rachid Hamdani has been given his exit visa Monday late afternoon 22 February, but has not left Tripoli, he told his wife Bruna by phone from Tripoli.
Goeldi had been ordered to appear in court before noon Tripoli time (11:00 in Switzerland) or face unstipulated consequences, it was announced Monday 22 February. It had been understood that Goeldi could stay at the Swiss embassy until the appeals process had been exhausted.
Goeldi is one of two Swiss businessmen held in Tripoli since July 2008 against their will by the Libyan refusal to issue exit visas for them.
Links to other sites: Le Temps, Romandie News, TSR
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
Agreement should be cancelled now, says Commission head
Rachid Hamdani, Max Goeldi in Tripoli (©2009 DR / Amnesty International)
Update 17:15 Bern, Switzerland (GenvaLunch) – One of two Swiss men held in Tripoli, Libya has had his hearing postponed until 24 January, the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs announced Sunday 10 January. Rachid Hamdani did not appear at the scheduled hearing for fear of being seized by Libyan authorities. The two Swiss, held in Tripoli, since July 2008 following the arrest in Geneva of Hannibal Qadaffi and his wife, have been accused of visa violations and tax evasion. Their Libyan lawyer says he has not had access to all the documents held by the prosecution.
Rachid Hamdani, Max Goeldi, Swiss detained in Libya (©2009 DR / Amnesty International)
Tripoli, Libya (GenevaLunch) - The two Swiss men detained in Libya, Rachid Hamdani and Max Goeldi, appear together in a photo for the first time, distributed by Amnesty International’s Swiss office as a way of thanking the public for its support in recent days. Virtual candles have been lit in growing numbers since the start of December at www.bougieenlibye.ch and by today, 10 December and International Human Rights Day, 10,000 candles have been lit for the two men. They have also received more than 4,500 messages of support via Internet. Some 25,000 postcards from the public in Switzerland are also en route to the Swiss embassy in Tripoli, for the men.
The men read messages sent via Twitter several times a day, on a computer at the embassy, where they are staying while they await a second trial. A first trial found the men guilty of tax and visa irregularities. They were detained in July 2008, shortly after the arrest in Geneva of Hannibal Qadaffi, son of the Libyan leader.
“All these messages of support are really helping Rachid and me – they give us the courage to carry on, to remain hopeful,” Goeldi told Amnesty International eariler this week.
Background stories, GenevaLunch
Links to other sites: Amnesty International Switzerland, Virtual candles for Rachid and Max
Update 2 22:50 Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Reports were published Tuesday evening 1 December by several international news agencies that two Swiss businessmen, Max Goeldi and Rachid Hamdani, have been sentenced to 16 months in prison and fined $1,671 each by a Libyan court. Reuters received an e-mail confirmation from the Swiss foreign affairs ministry late Tuesday night confirming the news. The men have been sentenced on visa irregularities charges, according to the Swiss spokesman, Reuters reports. They are currently both at the Swiss Embassy. The two have been unable to leave the country since July 2008, shortly after Hannibal Qadaffi, the son of Libya’s leader, was arrested in Geneva for abusing his staff at a hotel. The arrest sparked a diplomatic row which has not been resolved, and the new sentences could strain tensions even further.
The two men, in Libya on business at the time of their arrest, were at the centre of intense negotiations in August 2009, when Muammar Qadaffi appears to have promised to help release them soon. Agencies reporting the story quote an unnamed Libyan official who also says the men face another trial, but no details were provided.
TSR, Swiss public television, early Tuesday evening reported that an official at ABB, the multinational that employs Goeldi, confirmed to the station that the men had been sentenced.
