Dragged away after rape claims
TRIPOLI: A distraught Libyan woman burst into a hotel housing foreign journalists in Tripoli and accused security forces of torturing and raping her.
Iman al-Obeidi was dragged away by plain-clothes officials and driven off to an uncertain fate after she breached security at the government-run Rixos Hotel.
''Look at what Gaddafi's militias did to me,'' she told reporters, crying and upset as she described her ordeal. ''They swore at me and they filmed me. I was alone. There was whisky. I was tied up. They violated my honour.''
Desperate plea ... Ms Obeidi, centre, reacts as she is grabbed by a Libyan official, preventing members of the foreign media from reaching her. Photo: AP
Ms Obeidi said she was detained at a checkpoint and singled out because she is from Benghazi, the heart of the anti-Gaddafi revolt. ''Look at my face!'' she said to journalists, crying. ''I am not scared of anything. I will be locked up immediately after this,'' she shouted. ''Look at my face. Look at my back. All of my body is bruised.''
Ms Obeidi said she was raped by 15 men over the course of two days. She had cuts to her face and blood on her thigh.
As she told her story, plain-clothes security men tried to stop her, pushing her and throwing punches at journalists who were trying to interview her. One of the government minders threw a coat over her head in an attempt to stop her talking. A waitress brandished a knife as they attempted to drag her away, yelling: ''You traitor. How dare you say that?''
Afterwards, Ms Obeidi was marched outside, shouting in defiance, and forced into a car. Before she was driven away she expressed fears for her safety.
''I don't know where they are taking me, they say they are taking me to hospital,'' she said. ''It could be to prison. Look at what happens - Gaddafi's militiamen kidnap women at gunpoint, and rape them, they rape them.''
Moussa Ibrahim, a government spokesman, said: ''She is drunk, she is suffering from mental problems. She is refusing co-operation.''
The suggestion that she had mental problems raised concerns that Ms Obeidi would be detained indefinitely in a government-controlled psychiatric institution.
Charles Clover, of the Financial Times, who had tried to protect Ms Obeidi and was struck several times during the confrontation, was expelled from Libya under government escort.
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