Thaindian News

Tripoli, Mar 27(ANI): International journalists, who tried to intervene to protect Iman al-Obeidi who claims that she was gang-raped for two days by 15 of Libyan dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi’s henchmen in Tripoli, have alleged that they were assaulted by government minders.

Channel 4 News foreign affairs correspondent Jonathan Miller said that he had been pushed out of the way while trying to defend the woman.

“I was punched, violently pushed backwards over a chair and pushed to the floor,” the Daily Mail quoted Miller, as saying.

“In seeking to keep her away from the media, the minders not only came after her, but the journalists too,” he added.

Sky News foreign affairs correspondent Lisa Holland was among the reporters caught up in the melee.

A CNN camera was also smashed on the ground and ripped to pieces by the government minders.

A desperate plea for help from the world was made yesterday by Obeidi who burst into a press briefing being held at a hotel in Tripoli and told how Gaddafi’s troops had held her at gunpoint at a checkpoint, tied her up, then led her away to be raped by 15 men over two days.

In response, a hotel waitress brandished a butter knife, a government minder reached for his handgun and another waitress pulled a jacket tightly over her head.

The waiters called her a traitor and tried to stop her talking.

Government minders eventually overpowered the woman and led her outside, shoving her into a car that sped away. Obeidi kept crying that she was certain she would be thrown in jail.

At a hastily arranged press conference following the incident, Moussa Ibrahim, a government spokesman, said investigators had told him that the woman was drunk and possibly mentally challenged. (ANI)