Wednesday, March 30, 2011

TRIPOLI: A Libyan woman who burst into a Tripoli hotel to tell foreign journalists how she was gang raped by Moammar Gadhafi’s troops will face criminal charges, a government spokesman said Tuesday.
The spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, said the men accused by Iman al-Obeidi were now suing her. A son of a high-ranking Libyan official was among those she claimed had raped her, he said.

“The boys she accused are bringing a case against her because it’s a very grave offense to accuse someone of a sexual crime,” Ibrahim told reporters in the Libyan capital.
Obeidi made headlines when she rushed distraught into Tripoli’s Rixos Hotel Saturday, seeking to speak to foreign media.

After being intimidated by security men and hotel staff, who also beat journalists trying to interview her in the restaurant of the hotel, she was bundled into a car and driven away.
She claimed she was detained by a number of Gadhafi troops at a Tripoli checkpoint Wednesday. She said they were drinking whiskey and handcuffed her, and that 15 men later raped her.
Obeidi’s claim could not be independently verified. The Associated Press only identifies rape victims who volunteer their names.

As she started to tell her story, Obeidi was tackled by waitresses and government minders and was dragged away from the hotel, and has since been missing.

Her parents claim she is being held hostage at Gadhafi’s compound in the Libyan capital.
Libyan authorities have alternately labeled Obeidi a drunk, a prostitute and a thief.
Ibrahim Tuesday refused to discuss Obeidi’s whereabouts.

But in an interview with the AP Sunday, he had said she was with her sister in the Libyan capital. He also said at the time that police have a file on Obeidi for prostitution and petty theft.

Iman’s mother, Aisha Ahmad, said she had been asked to persuade her daughter to retract the allegations in return for her freedom and cash or a new home. She told journalists she had been contacted by the authorities about her daughter and how she could be freed.

“Last night at 3, they called from Gadhafi’s compound and asked me to convince my daughter Iman to change what she said, and we will set her free immediately and you can take anything you and your children would ask for,” she said, according to Sky News, which broadcast her interview late Monday.
“Money, new home, just ask your daughter to change what she has said. I told my daughter, keep silent,” she said.
It was not immediately clear when the interview was filmed.

Ahmad said Obeidi had been “mistreated by those criminals and cheaters, Gadhafi and his followers.”
“Iman was kidnapped in front of the camera,” she said.
“She was trying to appear to the world, she wanted to tell them what was happening in Misrata, in Benghazi and the east. She wanted to reveal that.”

Wadad Omar, who said she was her cousin, said Sunday that Obeidi was first arrested after taking part in a protest in the early days of the uprising in the western city of Zawiyah. The revolt erupted in mid-February.
Residents in Benghazi, bastion of the insurgency against Gadhafi, staged a demonstration in support of Obeidi Sunday. – AP, Reuters