Libya bars travellers over arrest

Libya is refusing to issue visas for visitors from nearly everyEuropean country in an escalation of a dispute that began when Swiss authorities arrested the son of Muammar Gaddafi.
By The Newsroom
Published 16th Feb 2010, 20:26 BST
Updated 16th Feb 2010, 20:26 BST

The new restrictions prevent everyone from oil executives to tourists from Europe's passport-free zone of 25 nations from visiting Libya.

Libyan visas already granted are also no longer valid and a number of Italians were waiting in Tripoli's airport for a flight to take them home. Libyan government officials refused to comment.

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European officials said the move was clearly retaliation for the 25 nations' co-operation with a Swiss travel blacklist of Gaddafi and his son Hannibal and other relatives, along with Libyan government

officials.

Hannibal was held in a Swiss jail for two days after his arrest in July 2008 because he and his wife were accused of beating up their servants in a hotel. The criminal investigation was dropped after the two

servants received compensation.

Muammar Gaddafi forced Swiss finance minister and then-President Hans-Rudolf Merz to apologise in Libya last year and agree to compensation claims.

Libya pulled most of its money out of Swiss vaults and Libyan

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authorities continue to detain two Swiss citizens after 18 months as a form of revenge.

In response, Switzerland initiated a visa blacklist that included Gaddafi and his family. That has drawn the rest of Europe into the dispute because a travel ban from one member of the continent's passport-free Schengen agreement is binding on them all. The Schengen visa zone includes France, Germany and Italy as well as non-EU member Switzerland.

The Libyan restrictions do not appear to affect British travellers.

Related topics:Europe