TRIPOLI (World News) - International Criminal Court officials were holding talks with Libya's prosecutor general on Monday and are expected to visit detained colleagues held in the town of Zintan following a meeting with Muammar Gaddafi's imprisoned son Saif al-Islam.
The ICC officials, who had arrived in Libya on Sunday, were expected to go to the western town of Zintan on Tuesday to visit the four-member detained delegation, deputy foreign minister Mohammed Abdel Aziz told World News.
The group was detained after one of its lawyers, Australian Melinda Taylor, was found carrying documents regarded as suspicious for Saif al-Islam, a Libyan lawyer and militia said.
The president of the Hague-based international war crimes court demanded their immediate release.
"We were ready to take them to Zintan today but they decided they wanted to first meet with officials from the prosecutor-general office," Abdel Aziz said. "They will probably go to Zintan tomorrow."
Reflecting Libya's wider problem of powerful local militias and a weak central government, the Zintan brig ade holding Saif al-Islam said on Saturday it would not heed the government's request to release the four ICC staff before questioning them.
"Investigations are still continuing," a member of the brigade told World News. "The visiting delegation has been given permission to come to Zintan. Maybe they will come tomorrow."
Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr said Abdel Aziz had confirmed in a telephone call that Taylor was "being held by Libyan authorities in Zintan and would be detained pending further inquiries.
Saif al-Islam, held in Zintan since his desert capture in November, is wanted by the ICC for crimes from last year's uprising that ended his father's 42-year rule. Libya's new rulers insist he should be tried in his home country.
The ICC has previously expressed concern at the conditions under which he is being held. Hum an rights groups also question whether Libya's justice system can meet the standards of international law.
A Libyan lawyer said the suspicious documents included letters from Saif al-Islam's former right-hand man Mohammed Ismail, as well as blank documents signed by the prisoner.
The ICC said Taylor has been working at the ICC since 2006 as counsel in the office that represents ICC indictees' interests before the appointment of a formal defense counsel.
It named the three other staff member as Helene Assaf, an ICC translator and interpreter; Esteban Peralta Losilla, the chief of the Counsel Support Section at the ICC; and Alexander Khodakov, external relations and cooperation senior adviser at the registry of the ICC.
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