Libya detains Aussie lawyer for spying

Muammar Gaddafi. Photo / AP

Prime Minister Julia Gillard urged Libya yesterday to release an Australian lawyer detained on suspicion of spying, as the International Criminal Court (ICC) said it was "very concerned" about the safety of Melinda Taylor and three colleagues.

The four, part of an ICC defence team working with the late Muammar Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam, were detained last week after visiting him in the mountain town of Zintan, where he is being held by local militia. The former rebels claim Taylor, 36, tried to smuggle in documents posing "a danger to the security of Libya", and was carrying a small camera and tape recorder intended for spying.

She and her colleagues are under house arrest, reportedly in a guesthouse in Zintan, a former rebel stronghold. The Australian Foreign Minister, Bob Carr, who has spoken by phone to the Libyan Deputy Foreign Minister, Mohammed Abdel Aziz, said he had been assured Taylor was "safe and well". However, she has yet to be given consular access, or be allowed to contact her family or the ICC.

Libya-watchers suggested the detention of Taylor - together with her Lebanese translator, Helene Assaf, a senior Russian diplomat, Alexander Khodakov, and a Spanish jurist, Esteban Peralta Losilla - could be a tactical ploy in the stand-off between Libya and the ICC about where Gaddafi should be tried.

The Hague-based ICC wants to try him for crimes against humanity relating to his role in trying to suppress the bloody uprising that ended his father's 42-year rule. However, the new Libyan regime insists he should be tried at home, where he would face the death penalty. Complicating matters, the Zintan militia which captured him last November is refusing to hand him over to the Tripoli authorities.

It was not clear yesterday exactly who is holding Taylor and her colleagues. Carr - who has dispatched David Ritchie, the Australian ambassador responsible for Italy and Libya, to Tripoli - said he understood they were being detained by "judicial police", not militia in Zintan, about 180km north of Tripoli.

However, a Zintan brigade member said on Sunday that they would not be released yet, because "they are still under investigation".

The brigade commander, Ajmi al-Atiri, claimed that among the documents Taylor was carrying was a coded letter from Gaddafi's former right-hand man, Mohammed Ismail, who is still on the run, and a signed declaration by Gaddafi that he wished to be tried in The Hague.

The visit took place at Gaddafi's request, and had been authorised by Libyan authorities. The ICC president, Sang Hyun Song, demanded their immediate release, saying he was "very concerned about the safety of our staff in the absence of any contact with them". He also stressed they had immunity while on ICC missions, but Libyan officials said they would seek to have that immunity waived.

Taylor - described by a former tutor at the University of Queensland yesterday as a person of "the utmost integrity and incredible professionalism", with "a great commitment to international criminal justice" - has worked for the ICC since 2006, mainly on the defence side. Her mother told the Sydney Morning Herald: "She's very caring, and she wears her heart on her sleeve."