WUNRN
Libya – Gaddafi’s Female Bodyguards
By Elizabeth Flock –
Two female
body guards of Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi wait at the door outside the
conference hall in Cairo, Friday, Aug. 10, 1990. (Norbert Schiller – AP)
Five women who
were part of Col. Moammar Gaddafi’s elite team of female bodyguards say they
were raped and abused by the now fugitive Libyan leader.
The Sunday Times of Malta reports that the former
bodyguards said Gaddafi and his sons raped and abused them and then discarded
the women once the men became “bored” with them.
Benghazi-based psychologist Seham Sergewa has collected the details
for use by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is investigating
possible war crimes by Gaddafi and his associates.
Gaddafi has kept a cadre of about 30 women, known as his
Amazonian guard, close by his side since the early 1970s. At times, the women
took bullets for Gaddafi — one woman died and two were injured when the Libyan
leader was attacked in 1998.
The strongman asked his female bodyguards not
only for their protection but also for oaths of virginity, and that they be
dressed in camouflage, nail polish, coiffed hair, and heavy mascara.
One woman told the Sunday Malta Times she was blackmailed into
joining the unit after the regime told her that her brother had been
smuggling drugs into Libya
and she would go to jail unless she agreed to join the brigade.
“A pattern emerged in the stories,” the Times reports. “The women would be
first raped by the dictator and then passed on, like used objects, to one of his
sons and eventually to high-ranking officials for more abuse before eventually
being let go.”
Sergewa is also investigating claims that Gaddafi soldiers systematically
raped women during the conflict. Some women have come forward saying they were
raped by as many as 20 soldiers at a time.
“In one case, a girl, around 18 or so, said she was raped in front of her
father. She kept telling him not to look at her,” Sergewa said.
Other victims have committed suicide or were contemplating it.
New reports show that the violence against women may
extend to Gaddafi’s son Hannibel and wife Aline Skaf, as well. At Gaddafi’s
seaside homes, CNN discovered that Hannibel’s nanny had been beaten, starved,
and repeatedly burned. Watch the graphic video of Hannibel’s nanny here.
Since June, many Libyan women have also been asked to join the armed forces to
fight against the rebels.
“We are going to make sure that every mother, the symbol of love and
creation, is a bomb, a killing machine,” government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said.
See more photos of the female bodyguards below, or in our
photo gallery.
One of
Gaddafi’s female bodyguards looks on at Rome‘s La Sapienza university, where the Libyan leader was to
deliver an address June 11, 2009. (Andrew Medichini – AP)
Three
female bodyguards assigned to protect Gaddafi are at the opening of his
irrigation project in Benghazi, April 29, 19
A female bodyguard stands watch behind
Gaddafi and then-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at a conference Thursday,
Jan. 18, 1996. (Mohamed El-Dakhakhny – AP)
One of Gaddafi’s bodyguards stands with her
pistol in a holster by one of Gaddafi’s limousines in Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia, on June 6, 1983. (Saris – AP)
Categories: Releases
