Nov 28, 2009, 18:06 GMT
Geneva - World Economic Forum (WEF) has barred Libya from its forthcoming meeting in Davos in January amid an ongoing diplomatic row with Switzerland, a senior WEF official reportedly told Swiss media Saturday.
'There won't be any participants from Libya as long as bilateral relations between Switzerland and Libya have not normalized,' Kai Bucher was quoted as saying by the swissinfo.ch website.
It was not known if any applications to attend had been received from Libya for the annual meeting of politicians and business leaders that takes place on January 27-31, according to the report.
Relations between Libya and Switzerland became strained after the son of Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi was arrested last year for allegedly mistreating their household staff. Hannibal Gaddafi's wife was also arrested, but later released.
Days after the incident in July 2008, Libya detained two Swiss businessmen for allegedly violating visa and tax and has to date refused to allow the two to leave country.
Last year, another of Gadaffi's son's Seif-al-Islam Gaddafi, held talks with Swiss officials on the sidelines of the conference.
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