Wednesday, 31 August 2011
Five of Qaddafi's former bodyguards have stepped forward to talk about the sexual assaults committed by him. (File photo)
The claims have been collected by Benghazi-based psychologist Sehram Sergewa who is compiling a dossier for the International Criminal Court for any criminal proceedings against Qaddafi.
Qaddafi was known for his female bodyguards who were always well groomed and rumored to be up to 400 according to a recent report in Al Arabiya. Qaddafi made his guards take a vow of virginity and renamed all of them Aisha, after his only daughter.
The women who stepped forward to share their experiences, however, speak of horrifying crimes of rape by the leader and then his sons or other officials.
One woman, who said she was raped before becoming a female guard by Qaddafi when she sought his intervention to be re-instated at university, was blackmailed into becoming a bodyguard.
“She was told you either become a bodyguard or your brother [detained on fabricated charges of drug trafficking] will spend the rest of his life in prison,” Dr. Sergewa told the newspaper.
Charges of rape aren’t limited to Qaddafi. When conducting a survey at a refugee camp in Tunisia, Dr. Sergewa spoke to women who said they were raped by Qaddafi troops.
An 18-year-old claimed she was raped in front of her father by a soldier.
The United States had accused the Qaddafi regime of supplying its troops with Viagra to engage in sexual violence earlier in April this year according to a report in Al Arabiya English.
Dr. Sergewa estimates that there may be “as many as 6,000 victims of such rape,” she told the Malta Times.
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