A Swiss regional government is ready to pay compensation to a son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in a step to ease diplomatic tensions with Libya, Swiss television reported today.
A Geneva canton spokesman and Charles Poncet, a lawyer for Hannibal Gaddafi, both declined to comment on the report ahead of a weekly regional government meeting later today.
In a March 16 court filing shown by Swiss public television channel SFTV late yesterday, the Geneva government accepted responsibility for the leak of police mugshots of Hannibal Gaddafi taken when he was briefly arrested in July 2008.
Hannibal Gaddafi and his wife were suspected of mistreating two of their domestic staff and were held for two days. This sparked Libyan sanctions and the arrest of Swiss businessmen in Tripoli.
Diplomats said the publication of the photographs of a dishevelled looking Hannibal Kadhafi in a local newspaper last September added to the Gaddafi family's anger.
Geneva' State Council asked a local court to conclude that "the state of Geneva accepts its responsibility on the basis that the photographs of Mr Hannibal Gaddafi should never have reached the Tribune de Geneve" newspaper.
It also asked the court, which is expect to consider the filing tomorrow, "to allocate... an equitable indemnity" to the plaintiff.
Geneva called on the court to determine the newspaper's role and share of the unspecified damages, according to the document.
However, the Geneva government has steadfastly refused to apologise for the arrest of Gaddafi and his wife, standing by the decisions of its local police force and the judiciary.
Last August, Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz's apology to Libya for an "unjust arrest" sparked a bitter domestic political row and ultimately failed to resolve the standoff, which escalated instead.
One of two detained Swiss businessmen was released last month but the other, ABB employee Max Goeldi, is currently serving a four-month jail term in Libya on visa offences after being caught up in the row.
The two countries are also locked in an impasse over visas. Libya last month blocked visas issued to travellers from the Schengen area after Switzerland drew up a blacklist of 80 Libyan officials which is binding on all the countries in the Schengen area.