Post date: Jun 09, 2012 6:29:6 PM
ZINTAN, LIBYA, (JUNE 09, 2012) (REUTERS) - A delegation for the International Criminal Court has been detained in Libya after one of its lawyers was found to be carrying suspicious documents for Muammar Gaddafi's captured son Saif al-Islam, a Libyan lawyer and a militia said on Saturday (June 9).
A lawyer for the International Criminal Court is detained in Libya after a militia claimed she tried to induce Muammar Gaddafi's detained son Saif al-Islam to sign a document saying he agreed to be tried by the ICC.
The Australian lawyer, named as Melinda Taylor, was part of a four-member ICC delegation that had travelled to the small western mountain town of Zintan, where Saif al-Islam has been detained since his desert capture in November, to meet with him.
Saif al-Islam also is wanted by the ICC for crimes stemming from last year's war.
Reflecting Libya's wider problem of powerful local militias and a weak central government, the brigade which has been holding Gaddafi's Western-educated son said it would not heed the government's requests to release the delegation before questioning its members.
In Zintan, a small town of 35,000 people, the head of the brigade which captured Saif al-Islam, said there were no plans to release them imminently.
"They are still in our care, we partly represent the Justice Ministry and Judicial police and we partly represent the Defence Ministry. We have informed the Defence Ministry about what is happening and we had orders to detain the ICC delegation re-investigate them by the Defence Ministry," said Alajmi Ali Ahmed al-Atiri, the head of the brigade which captured Saif al-Islam.
The lawyer in charge of the case for Libya in Tripoli told Reuters Television Taylor was being held at a guest house.
"The delegation's bags were searched for security reasons and this is just routine for these kind of visits. It turns that this lady was carrying a pen with a camera and with the other lady was a watch with a recording machine, all this stuff was confiscated by the prosecution and the prosecution is still continuing the investigation, and Miss Taylor the lawyer she is still at the guesthouse, not in prison at all," said Ahmad al-Jehani, the Libyan lawyer in charge of the Saif al-Islam case on behalf of Libya, and who liaises between the government and the Hague-based ICC.
An ICC spokesman was not immediately reachable for comment.
Xavier-Jean Keita, who heads the ICC's Office of the Public Counsel for the Defence (OPCD), for which Taylor also works, said in a text message he was in a "crisis meeting" at the ICC.
The OPCD represents the ICC indictees' interests before the appointment of a formal defence counsel. Keita previously has expressed concern at the conditions under which Saif al-Islam is being held in Libya, saying in a court filing that his office has been unable to get unsupervised access to him.
Tripoli wants to try Saif al-Islam in his home country but the ad hoc nature of his detention highlights just how little control Libya's new rulers have over the country. Human rights groups also question whether its justice system can meet the standards of international law.
The ICC issued a warrant for Saif al-Islam last year after prosecutors accused him of involvement in the killing of protesters during the revolt that toppled his father.
In May, Libya filed a legal challenge, contesting the Hague-based court's right to try the case.
The ICC ruled this month he could stay in detention in Libya while the court decides if it has the jurisdiction to try him.