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the prosecutor general for the (ICC) team’s release,” said Ahmed Jehani, Libya’s envoy to the international tribunal.
An ICC team of four people on Thursday visited Saif al-Islam, son of slain leader Muammar Gaddafi, in the town of Zintan, 180 kilometres from the capital, where he is in detention.
The ICC said in a statement on Saturday that the four had been detained after the meeting. But Jehani said that only two members of the team, Australian Melinda Taylor, and her Lebanese interpreter, Helen Assaf, were in detention, while two men, a Russian and a Spanish national, stayed behind out of their own accord.
“They arrested just two, the others stayed voluntarily,” said Jehani.
“She (Melinda Taylor) had a pen camera and a letter from one of the men most wanted by the Libyan judiciary, Mohammed Ismail, the former right hand man to Saif who is now on the run,” he added.
Jehani said he had seen the letter, which consisted of drawings and symbols, a code which cannot be understood except by the person who sent it and the intended recipient, Saif.
“She is under investigation because she committed a crime. According to Libyan law, it would be spying, communication with the enemy.”
Taylor works with Xavier-Jean Keita, the defence attorney appointed by the ICC. Contacted, Keita declined to make any comment.
The team was there to help Saif choose a defence lawyer and that the visit was authorised by Libya’s chief prosecutors, according to the ICC.
But Taylor’s wardens, members of the same Zintan brigade that captured Saif, say she should have declared the documents instead of sneaking them in.
Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr called yesterday for her release.
The Hague-based court wants to try both Saif (39), and his late father’s spymaster, Abdullah Senussi, for crimes against humanity. But the new regime in Libya wants to put Saif on trial in a local court. The ex-rebels in Zintan who have been holding Saif since they captured him on November 19 have refused to transfer him to Tripoli because they fear he would escape from the capital, where they say security is weak. — AFP.