Libya protesters target Swiss banks over arrest
TRIPOLI (Reuters) - OPEC member Libya should withdraw deposits in Swiss banks if the Swiss government fails to apologize for the arrest of a son of Muammar Gaddafi, an influential Libyan political group said on Wednesday.
The Revolutionary Committees Movement, a group of Gaddafi followers who help to manage the Libyan leader's Jamahiriyah or state of the masses political system, made the call in protest at the arrest last week in Geneva of Hannibal Gaddafi.
"We are loyal to the revolution ... We are ready to defend the leader and his family," shouted a crowd of more than 200 demonstrators who staged a protest organized by the committees outside the Swiss embassy in the capital Tripoli.
Gaddafi was released on bail after he and his wife were charged with ill-treatment of two domestic employees. Gaddafi denied the charges, his lawyer has said.
Gaddafi was arrested in a luxury hotel in Geneva on July 15 after staff alerted police to repeated arguments in their suite. He spent two nights in jail while his wife Aline, who is nine months pregnant, was taken to hospital feeling unwell.
In Berne, the Swiss foreign ministry said it had sent a delegation to the north African oil-exporting country with information about the arrest of Hannibal Gaddafi "to prevent a crisis between the two countries."
"Since July 17, the Libyan authorities have taken a number of worrying retaliatory measures," it said, adding that until further notice it advised Swiss citizens not to travel to Libya.
VISAS, AIR LINKS
The ministry said Libya had suspended the issuing of visas for Swiss nationals and Swiss companies in Libya had received orders to close. Some company offices had been sealed.
Air connections between Libya and Switzerland had been reduced, and since July 19, two Swiss nationals had been detained on various charges, it said.
In Geneva, Laurent Moutinot, the head of the Geneva canton government, denied Libyan accusations Gaddafi was mistreated.
"No force was used against the Gaddafi couple," he said in a statement. "The reputation of Switzerland as a country of human rights demanded that the police intervene."
Libya, with a population of 5 million and Africa's biggest oil reserves owner, has built up big foreign exchange holdings in recent years thanks to high petroleum prices. Its state foreign investment authority manages a $50 billion portfolio.
Money from Libya in accounts at banks and trusts in Switzerland amounted to around 6.5 billion Swiss francs ($6.29 billion) in 2007, according to Swiss National Bank statistics.
In Tripoli, the committees movement said in a statement it would recommend to policy-makers that if an apology was not forthcoming for what it suggested were trumped-up charges, Libya should cut diplomatic ties with Switzerland.
It said the committees would also push policy-making people's congresses to approve "stopping oil supply to Switzerland, expelling Swiss companies working in Libya ... withdrawing Libyan deposits in Swiss banks and stopping airline flights between Libya and Switzerland."
In Libya's "Jamahiriyah" system, supreme power belongs to hundreds of local community meetings known as basic people's congresses, which send up their decisions to a general people's congress or parliament via a pyramid of committees.
The general people's congress in turn passes on these decisions in the form of instructions to government ministries, which are tasked with implementation.
Swiss engineering group
"ABB is working closely with the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs to seek a rapid resolution of the issue," ABB said in a statement. It did not elaborate.
(Reporting by Salah Sarrar; Editing by William Maclean and Janet Lawrence)
