While officials from Qaddafi’s government claim Eman al-Obeidy — the Libyan woman who on Saturday who burst into a Tripoli hotel alleging Qaddafi’s forces had gang-raped and tortured her — has been returned to her family, al-Obeidy’s mother says she’s still in government custody. What’s worse, her mother claims the government actually called her early Monday morning demanding that she force her daughter to change her statement in exchange for release. “Yesterday, late at night at 3 a.m., they called me from Bab al Aziziya,” Qaddafi’s compound in Tripoli, she said on Al-Jazeera television Monday. “And they told me: Make your daughter Eman change her statement … and we will release her immediately and whatever you ask for you will get, whether money, or a new apartment, or guaranteeing financial security for you and your children. But just tell Eman to change her statement.”
Both her mother and father stood in full support of their daughter, and denied the government’s claims that she was a prostitute or mentally ill. “[My daughter] has her full mental capabilities and she is a graduate of law school and a lawyer and she is pursuing higher education in Tripoli. And she was kidnapped by Gadhafi’s tyrannical forces,” said her father.
“I am not ashamed of my daughter,” said al-Obeidy’s mother, who spoke from an undisclosed location. “I am proud of her because she has broken the barrier. She broke the barrier that no man can break. And those dogs there with him, Moammar, [are] the criminals!”
Mother of Libyan woman who alleged rape says daughter still in custody [CNN]
