Victim of alleged Libyan gang rape ‘held hostage’

THE parents of a Libyan woman who claimed she was detained by Muammar Gaddafi’s troops and later gang raped said that their daughter is being held hostage at the Libyan leader’s compound in Tripoli.

Iman al-Obeidi made headlines when she rushed distraught into a Tripoli hotel on Saturday, seeking to tell foreign reporters about her rape. She was tackled by waitresses and government minders and dragged away in an ensuing melee.

In interviews broadcast on satellite Al-Jazeera Television, al-Obeidi’s parents countered government claims that their daughter had been set free after the hotel incident and was now with a sister in the Libyan capital. They also countered allegations of a government spokesman who had said she is a prostitute.