Just because he’s stopped trying to incite war with the United States, it doesn’t mean Libyan overlord Muammar el-Qaddafi is any less crazy and hellbent on destruction. These days, as he tells the German magazine Spiegel in a new interview, he believes Switzerland is the evil empire. Yes, Switzerland! But the animus seems to stem from Qaddafi’s thuggish son Hannibal being arrested in that country for the savage beating of two people.
A few excerpts from the Spiegel piece.
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Spiegel: Mr. Gadhafi, for years you repeatedly got into shouting matches with the Western world before making your peace with arch-enemy America four years ago. Now you have declared a holy war on tiny Switzerland, of all countries. Why?
Qaddafi: Switzerland is one country among many; sometimes you have trouble with one country, sometimes with another. We never had difficulties with Switzerland before. We used to appreciate it as a holiday destination. We used to appreciate its companies and its watches. But then Switzerland began to treat us badly. For example, the minaret issue and the publishing of nasty portrayals of the Prophet. It was necessary to draw a line with the Swiss. That is what I did in my speech in Benghazi to mark the Prophet’s birthday.
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Spiegel: Doesn’t your anger with Switzerland in reality stem from the fact that your son Hannibal was arrested by police in Geneva in July 2008 and accused of beating up two people in his employment?
Qaddafi: The thing with Hannibal has been nothing but a source of enjoyment for Switzerland. This is a gang that doesn’t care about law and order. The way they treated Hannibal proves that Switzerland respects no laws. A man employed by my son brought accusations against him so that he could remain in Switzerland. They can lock him up — but please do so within the law. The police acted like a gang. They were dressed in plain clothes and they broke down the door, put my son in chains and brought his wife to a hospital. They left his daughter, who is one or two years old, alone back at the hotel. Then they put him handcuffed in a cold storage room, and at times in a bathroom — exactly the way al-Qaida treats its victims. An act of terrorism.
Spiegel: According to the Swiss authorities, something entirely different happened in Geneva. They say that your son beat up two people there.
Qaddafi: No, no. Nothing like that happened. Switzerland has not said that to me nor to anyone else. I’m hearing this now for the first time.
Spiegel: But similar things have also happened elsewhere. Your sons have also run into trouble with the police in London, Paris and Germany. What do you say to them when something like this happens?
Qaddafi: These are cases of youthful exuberance.
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Spiegel: What do you think of German Chancellor Angela Merkel?
Qaddafi: She is a strong personality. More like a man than a woman. But I have never had a conversation with her.
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Spiegel: Where do you get your facts? Do you watch television? Do you read books?
Qaddafi: I get most of them from the Internet. I constantly sit at my computer. I read in Arabic, but now it is of course also possible to immediately get translations from English.•