Tripoli: Libyan police have surrounded the Swiss embassy in Tripoli as the deadline approached for the mission to hand over a Swiss businessman whose conviction in Libya has aggravated a diplomatic flap.
Libyan Foreign Minister Mousa Koussa has warned that if the Swiss man was not handed over on Monday, the government would take action. He did not elaborate.
"No embassy should become a haven from justice," Koussa said. "I hope this will not force us to adopt other measures."
A Libyan appeals court earlier this month reduced Max Goeldi's prison sentence for violating residency laws from 16 months to four months.
He and another Swiss businessman, Rachid Hamdani, were allowed to stay in the embassy during their trial. Hamdani was acquitted.
The diplomatic dispute erupted after Swiss police briefly detained Hannibal Gaddafi, the son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, and his wife in 2008, after two of their servants accused the couple of beating them at a Geneva hotel.
Geneva authorities dropped their criminal investigation after the servants withdrew their complaint, but the Libyan leader forced the Swiss to apologise and Libya withdrew all the money it had in Swiss vaults.
The row was exacerbated after Goeldi was convicted and Switzerland put Muammar Gaddafi and his family on a visa blacklist, in effect barring them from entering dozens of other European states.
