TRIPOLI - A female lawyer for the International Criminal Court has been detained in Libya after she was found to be carrying suspicious letters for Muammar Gaddafi's detained son Saif al-Islam, a Libyan lawyer said on Saturday.
The Australian lawyer, named as Melinda Taylor, was part of a four-member ICC delegation that had travelled to the western mountain town of Zintan where Saif al-Islam has been kept since his capture in November.
"During a visit (to Saif al-Islam), the lawyer tried to deliver documents to him, letters that represent a danger to the security of Libya," said Ahmed al-Jehani, the Libyan lawyer in charge of the Saif al-Islam case and who liaises between the government and the Hague-based ICC.
"She is not in jail. She is being detained in a guesthouse, her colleagues are with her."
Asked whether she would be released soon, Jehani said: "I hope today."
An ICC spokesman was not immediately reachable for comment.
Saif al-Islam, Gaddafi's one-time heir apparent is wanted both by Libya and the ICC. He was captured by fighter from Zintan in Libya's southern desert in November, dressed as a Bedouin tribesman, and taken to their home town.