Libya says top arbitrator picked for tribunal

Switzerland and Libya have agreed on a chief arbitrator to oversee a dispute involving Moammar Gaddafi’s son, the Libyan foreign ministry says.

Philippe Kirsch, a former head of the International Criminal Court, is to chair an arbitration tribunal designed to end a long dispute between Switzerland and Libya, the ministry said in a statement.

However the Swiss foreign ministry has declined to confirm the announcement.

Relations between the two countries have been strained since July 2008 when Genevan police arrested Hannibal Gaddafi and his wife for allegedly mistreating two of their personal servants in a luxury hotel. The Libyans took a number of measures in retaliation, including holding two Swiss businessmen hostage, and jailing one of them.

An agreement aimed at normalising relations signed by Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz on a controversial visit to Tripoli in August 2009, included the establishment of an international arbitration court to examine the circumstances of Gaddafi’s arrest.

Switzerland and Libya nominated British international law expert Elizabeth Wilmshurst and Indian attorney Sreenivasa Pammaraju as their respective representatives to the court, but no chief arbitrator was found.

The tribunal was also part of an action plan signed in June 2010 between the foreign ministers of the two countries. It stipulated that the countries had 30 days to name a chairman for the tribunal, and it would have 60 days to settle the case.