The Libyan measure was intended to increase pressure on energy-importing Switzerland in a row over the July 15 arrest in Geneva of Hannibal Gaddafi, who together with his wife was charged with ill-treatment of two domestic employees. Gaddafi, who was freed on bail after two days in detention, denied the charges, his lawyer has said.
Libyan officials said his arrest was an affront to national dignity. An influential political group close to Muammar Gaddafi called it a "horrible crime" and "unprecedented serious action". The row is the second in recent months between a European country and Libya, which has been gradually patching up relations with the West after a long strain in ties.
In May Libya threatened to suspend co-operation with Italy on immigration after the appointment of a government minister who, at the height of a 2006 row over Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, wore a T-shirt showing an offending cartoon.
In Berne, the Swiss foreign ministry said on Wednesday it had sent a delegation to the north African country with information about the arrest of Hannibal Gaddafi "to prevent a crisis between the two countries." Over the past week Libya has stopped issuing visas for Swiss nationals, reduced flights between the two countries, ordered some Swiss companies in Libya to close and detained two Swiss nationals on various charges, the Swiss foreign ministry said.
EXPORTS HALTED: On Thursday workers of Libya's state-owned Maritime Transport National Corporation, which numbers Hannibal among its senior officials, announced Libya had halted oil exports to Switzerland and all ships carrying Swiss-made goods were barred from unloading their cargoes at Libyan ports.
"If the Swiss authorities do not apologise in the next coming hours to the brother Leader (Muammar Gaddafi) and the Libyan people we will take more major steps," a statement said. "These major steps against those full of hatred among the Swiss police and government will have a beginning, but no end." In Zurich, Rolf Hartl, Managing Director of the Swiss Oil Association, said Libya provided about 50,000 barrels of Switzerland's 250,000 barrels per day consumption.
Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey has issued a strong protest against the detention of the two Swiss and the closure of Swiss company offices, her ministry said. A Swiss official involved in the arrest, Laurent Moutinot, head of the Geneva canton government, said Hannibal Gaddafi had not been mistreated. "We live in a state of law, where the law applies to everyone," he said.
The Zurich-based Tages-Anzeiger newspaper called on the Swiss government to stand firm. "There is no reason for Switzerland to react in any way to the blackmailing of this country and its dictator," it said in an editorial.
Gaddafi was arrested in a luxury hotel after staff alerted police to repeated arguments in their suite. He spent two nights in jail while his wife Aline, who is nine months pregnant, was taken to hospital feeling unwell. Hannibal Gaddafi has run into trouble with European countries before. In May 2005, a Paris criminal court gave him a suspended four-month prison sentence for slapping a woman seven months pregnant and carrying a gun without a licence.