One of two Swiss businessmen held in Libya for 19 months amid a diplomatic row between the two states left for home yesterday as the other was expected to emerge from his country’s embassy to serve time in jail.
Rashid Hamdani was being driven overland to Tunisia after coming out of the embassy where the pair had taken shelter and receiving an exit visa from Libya, their lawyer Salah Zahaf said.
Zahaf, who had accompanied Hamdani to the Libyan passport offices to receive the visa, said he was returning to the embassy to meet up with Max Goeldi, the other businessman, and hand him over to Libyan judicial authorities.
Several dozen Libyan police had encircled the mission since late on Sunday in the countdown to the handover, witnesses said.
The pair have been caught in a bitter diplomatic row between Tripoli and Bern since the brief arrest in July 2008 of Hannibal Qaddafi, a son of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, at a Geneva hotel with his wife.
Goeldi was also due to walk out of the embassy and surrender to Libyan authorities, following an ultimatum to serve out a four-month sentence for overstaying his visa, Zahaf said.
“He will leave the embassy and turn himself in voluntarily,” Zahaf said, adding that he expected his client to be taken to Ain Zara prison near Tripoli.
Goeldi, a manager at Swedish-Swiss engineering giant ABB, would be held in a prison which is open to visitors and where he can receive medical care and the services of a translator, Zahaf said.
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