Gaddafi: Dissolve Switzerland
May 1, 2010 1:49 PM | By Sapa-dpa
Libyan revolutionary leader Moamer Gaddafi called in a German magazine interview published Saturday for Switzerland to be "dissolved," charging that it was a rogue state at odds with the international community.
The Libyan leader has been noted for unusual statements since he seized power in a coup in 1969. He has been in a clinch with Switzerland since his son Hannibal was briefly detained by Geneva police in 2008.
"I am calling for the state structures of Switzerland to be dissolved," he told the weekly Der Speigel. The Hamburg magazine released the interview to other media in advance of publication.
"Switzerland conducts money laundering on grand scale. Anyone who robs a bank, deposits the haul afterwards in Switzerland. Anyone who evades taxes goes to Switzerland. And a large number of the owners of such secret accounts then die in mysterious ways," he asserted.
He attacked Switzerland for allowing assisted suicide.
"A whole lot of people have been deliberately got out of the way using this excuse. The Swiss claim the people concerned expressed the wish to kill themselves. But in reality, it was done to get at their money. More than 7,000 people have been killed this way," he said.
"It may be that of the Libyans who have died abroad, some died because they had secret bank accounts in Switzerland," he said.
"We never had difficulties with Switzerland before. We liked it as a holiday destination. We liked their companies and their watches.But then Switzerland began treating us badly. For example this business about minarets and publishing nasty portrayals of the Prophet (Mohammed)," he said. "So we had to stand up to the Swiss.
"That's what I did in my speech in Benghazi on the Prophet's Birthday," said Gaddafi, who was referring to a referendum last year in which a majority of Swiss voted to ban construction of minarets.
Asked about Libya's policy on boat people crossing the Mediterranean from Africa to Europe, Gaddafi said he was willing to discuss the issue and to stop them leaving Libya's shore. He said housing and job-creation projects would help them stay at home.
"The European Union ought to pay Libya 5 billion euros per year via a special fund to combat the refugee problem," he said.
Asked about his sons' run-ins with police in Britain, France, Germany and Switzerland, he said, "Maybe it's just youthful zest. In France they claimed my son ran a red light. But that's perfectly normal."
Geneva police were summoned in 2008 when Gaddafi's son Hannibal was accused of beating two servants in a hotel, reports say.
"The police came like a gang. They were wearing plain clothes. They smashed open the doors, put my son in chains ... in a chill room, then in a bathroom. It was exactly what al-Qaeda does to its victims. It was an act of terrorism," Gaddafi said.
http://www.timeslive.co.za/africa/article428728.ece/Gaddafi--Dissolve-Switzerland
