The saga of Eman al-Obeidy, the woman who burst into a Tripoli hotel full of foreign reporters Saturday and told the story of her gang-rape at the hands of pro-Gaddafi militiamen, continues. Libyan government spokesman Musa Ibrahim said Tuesday that the men al-Obeidy had implicated had filed a civil suit against her, saying that she had slandered them, the New York Times reports. The names of the men have not been made public.
“Oh, yeah, they have filed a case,” Ibrahim told the Times. “The boys who she accused of rape are bringing a case because it is a very grave offense to accuse someone of a sexual crime.”
Five men, including the son of a high-ranking Libyan official, have been arrested in connection with al-Obeidy's claims.
Al-Obeidy said that she was detained at a checkpoint in Tripoli on the way back from an anti-Gaddafi protest, held for two days, and gang-raped by 15 men. She said the men urinated and defecated on her. Her claims could not be independently verified — if a medical examination was conducted, the results were not made available to the media — but she showed bruises and cuts on her arms, legs and face to reporters Saturday.
Al-Obeidy was dragged away from the journalists in the Roxo Hotel Saturday, and thrown into an unmarked car. Though Ibrahim insisted that she had been , she has not been seen by the media since Saturday, and her family contested Ibrahim's claims, saying al-Obeidy was still being held by the government.
Government spokesman Ibrahim has called her, alternately, a drunk, mentally ill, a prostitute, and sober and sane.
Her family has said that she is a law student, and said that they received calls to their home, offering cash if she would change her story and recant her claims of rape.
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