Updated

The youngest son of Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi was arrested and charged in Switzerland for allegedly beating up two of his servants, his lawyer said Thursday.

Hannibal al-Qaddafi and his wife were taken into police custody on Tuesday after an incident at a luxury hotel in Geneva, lawyer Alain Berger told Swiss radio.

The couple, who face charges of bodily harm, making threats and coercion, were released on bail Thursday, he said.

Geneva magistrate Michel-Alexandre Graber could not be reached for comment Thursday. A phone call to Libya's embassy in the Swiss capital, Bern, went unanswered.

Berger said Qaddafi has spent the last two evenings in detention. His pregnant wife, who came to Geneva to give birth, was transferred to a maternity unit, Berger said.

The Swiss daily Tribune de Geneve reported that two of Qaddafi's domestic servants claimed Qaddafi and his wife repeatedly beat them at the President Wilson Hotel, which is just next door to the United Nations' human rights office.

The pair allegedly hit the servants a belt and a hanger, the report said. It said a Tunisian woman was hospitalized.

Berger said Qaddafi and his wife reject the allegations.

The 32-year-old Qaddafi has had previous run-ins with the law. In 2005, he was convicted by a French court for striking his pregnant companion in a Paris hotel.

He was given a four-month suspended prison sentence and a $790 fine.

Qaddafi also was at the center of a separate commotion in 2004, when Paris police stopped him for speeding on the Champs-ElysDees and his bodyguards attacked several officers.

Two of the bodyguards were taken into custody but released after a delegation from the Libyan Embassy showed up at the police station and apologized. Qaddafi, who had diplomatic immunity, was not detained.