2010-04-13
GENEVA (Reuters) - A Geneva court has backed a claim by a son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi that the publication of leaked police photos of him by a Swiss newspaper infringed his privacy.

Monday's verdict in favour of Hannibal Gaddafi, cautiously welcomed by the Swiss government, raised hopes that the row between the two countries, in which a Swiss businessman is also being held in Libya on visa offences, could soon be resolved.

At one stage the 21-month-old row blocked travel and growing business ties between oil-exporter Libya and most of Europe.

But at the end of March the European Union defused the broader dispute with Libya sparked by a travel blacklist of 188 senior Libyans imposed by non-EU member Switzerland.

Swiss foreign ministry spokesman Lars Knuchel declined on Tuesday to comment on what impact the Geneva ruling would have on the case of Max Goeldi, serving a four-month prison sentence in Libya, or whether it would lead to renewed efforts for his release.

"We welcome the Geneva tribunal's verdict. The release of the police identification photos of Hannibal Gaddafi constitutes an offence," he told Reuters in answer to an enquiry.

Police arrested Hannibal and his wife at a Geneva hotel in July 2008 on charges -- later dropped -- of assaulting two domestic staff.

Libya reacted furiously to what it saw as a deliberate insult to Gaddafi's family, withdrawing $5 billion from Swiss banks and cutting the sale of oil to the Alpine state.

It subsequently detained Goeldi, the local head of Swiss-Swedish engineering group ABB, as well as another businessman of joint Swiss-Tunisian nationality who was released in February.

Libya has denied any connection between their detention and the case of Hannibal, who visited Goeldi in prison on March 1.

Hannibal was particularly incensed at the leaking of his police mugshot to a Geneva daily, the Tribune de Geneve, and sued the paper and Geneva authorities for breach of privacy.

The court confirmed that there had been a breach of privacy as there was no overriding public interest in publishing the photos, and ordered the newspaper and the canton of Geneva to publish its ruling and pay costs. But it rejected Hannibal's claim for 100,000 Swiss francs in damages.