Crisis deepens over legal team detained in Libya The four detained officials include Melinda Taylor, an Australian lawyer who was appointed as an interim defence counsel for Saif. The Libyan leadership said on Wednesday night it was powerless to release four officials from the international criminal court detained last week while visiting Muammar Gaddafi's imprisoned son, Saif al-Islam. The National Transitional Council (NTC), which led the dictator's overthrow last year, insisted it could not influence the investigation into allegations that some of the delegation were carrying coded documents from a fugitive and a camera disguised as a pen. The Libyan attorney general's office said that the ICC detainees, who were organising Saif's legal defence, would be held for 45 days during the investigation, deepening the crisis in relations between Libya and the international community over the incident. The officials were detained in the remote hilltop town of Zintan by a local militia after visiting the former heir to the Gaddafi regime, but despite demands from the ICC, the Australian government, human rights groups and the international criminal bar for their immediate release on grounds of diplomatic immunity, the NTC said it could not secure their freedom. The council's spokesman, Mohamed al-Harizi, told the Guardian: "The NTC cannot intervene. It is a matter for the legal department and the attorney general. Hopefully they will be released once the evidence has been examined, but there has to be an investigation. The ICC has not responded directly to the allegations. Ahmed al-Gehani, a Libyan lawyer who is in charge of the Saif case and liaises between the government and the ICC, told the Associated Press the detainees "are well, they are in a guesthouse, not in a prison. They have food, water, and are being treated well. The four detained officials include Melinda Taylor, an Australian lawyer who was appointed as an interim defence counsel for Saif in December, and her Lebanese translator, Helene Assaf, as well as Alexander Khodakov, a Russian diplomat, and Esteban Losilla, a Spanish academic. The four appear to have been caught in a three-way tussle between the Tripoli government, the Zintan militia holding Saif, and the ICC over where Saif should be put on trial for alleged crimes against humanity committed during the Libyan insurrection last year. Harizi told Australia's ABC channel on Tuesday that Taylor had handed Saif documents from a former close aide, Mohamed Ismail, wanted by Tripoli, and would be freed once she gave details of his whereabouts. We don't have anything against this woman. We just need some information from her. After that she will be free," Harizi said. On Wednesday night, however, Harizi, withdrew his statement, insisting he had no control over the timing of her release. Alajmi Ali Ahmed al-Atiri, the head of the Zintan militia, told journalists that espionage equipment, described as a camera hidden inside a pen, had been found among the delegation's effects, and vowed not to bow to political pressure to release the officials. Taylor's colleagues said it was unimaginable that the 36-year-old, who has a two-year-old daughter, would have done anything improper, noting she had been working in international justice since 1999 and at the ICC's office of public counsel for the defence since 2006. "She is a dedicated professional who is completely ethical in everything she does," her British husband, Geoff Roberts, said. This is a test for the ICC and for international justice, because if the court cannot protect its people, then the system fails. Mishana Hosseinioun, an Iranian friend of Saif who is studying in the UK, from where she has been campaigning for legal representation for him, said: "I really hope the international community will wake up and finally do the right thing, although it is sad that it takes the detention of an international lawyer to reveal the extent of the injustices there."