Iman al-Obeidi, Libya Woman Who Claimed Rape, Speaks With Anderson Cooper (VIDEO)

Iman al-Obeidi, the Libyan woman who claimed she was raped by Gaddafi forces, told Anderson Cooper horrifying details of her ordeal in an interview on Monday night.

Al-Obeidi, who was reportedly free on Monday, said that she is still being harassed by government forces and had been told not to discuss her experiences. However, Cooper said that she felt she had "nothing left to lose" after her abduction.

In a tearful audio interview, al-Obeidi recounted how she was abducted at a government checkpoint and held for days while being told she would "never see the light of day again." She described being bound, beaten, and having alcohol poured over her eyes. She also said that she was gang raped repeatedly, and that one of the soldiers sodomized her with his Kalishnikov while her hands were bound. "Let the men from Eastern Libya come and see how we treat their women, how we rape their women," she reports the guards saying.

The Gaddafi government has claimed that al-Obeidi is an unreliable source, claiming she was "drunk" and a prostitute. As Cooper points out, one broadcaster on Libyan television said that calling her a prostitute was an insult to that profession because "even a whore feels patriotic about Libya."

Al-Obeidi, who says she has been re-arrested multiple times, tried to flee to Tunisia. However, she says she will not stop speaking out about her ordeal because "after all I went through, there is nothing else that constitutes a danger to my life."

"I've reached the end of my tolerance for this," she told Cooper.

Watch Cooper's interview with al-Obeidi:

Comments

[Victorianur]

09:58 PM on 04/20/2011

Please keep in touch with her, keep talking about her, there must be at least that we can do. If she remains in the public awareness she is safer. They need her alive, hopefully, if we care.

[Capella Campomayor]

01:17 AM on 05/10/2011

She is already safe. She is under custody of the French government. -- Capella Campomayor, New York

[GR8 Amrika]

06:27 PM on 04/07/2011

those soldiers are the ones who are wrong here!! why is no one talking about them and their actions?

[shadowkitteh]

11:36 PM on 04/07/2011

Yeah, I'm sure they introduced themselves by name.. the military and the police are not going to give up that information. Their actions are deplorable, but without more details what is there to talk about?

[MBG-9]

12:03 PM on 04/07/2011

AC-360 -- all alleged rape, all the time.

[petit chaton]

10:10 AM on 04/07/2011

If nothing happened to her, why doesn't the government leave her alone or at least open an investigation. They are clearly cognisent of the media viewing this case. If nothing happened, the truth should set them free.

Take the rape out of this story and it 's still troubling. She spoke out against the regime and gets carted away by thugs. Skeptics, get over trying to prove she wasn't raped. Her speaking out and giving her name earns my respect.

[shadowkitteh]

05:29 PM on 04/07/2011

Excellent point! Right to the heart of the matter. She is a victim, making a claim of assault, not a criminal to be hauled away for questioning. The irony is that a government obsessed with its image is doing everything possible to damage it without help from anyone else.

[reioko007]

03:22 AM on 04/07/2011

umm.I was just wondering because in high school when we learned about rape and ALL the details in health class ,there were some issues that are still not being brought up by the media.I myself was molested and beaten as a child but I overcame that and now I am a young woman in my 20's married. Please be nice if you can answer me back. My question is if she was raped and sodomized for 2 days by 15 guys ,how could she still be able to run into a hotel lobby and have so much um stamina to fight and cause a scene?Wouldn't it be hard for her to even take a step without pain? I would question since she isn't a poor person or a lady living alone ,why didn't she go to the hospital first and get an exam of some sort due to the supposed repeated rapes and other violence she claimed happened.She could have just went and be checked out just to have on record some sort of physical proof of rape.She is educated and has means to seek help and why didn't she?Does anybody know if she was seen by a doctor?I also found her to look quite well,makeup on,jewelery,nice clothes etc.By just having her show some bruises and scratches, (she might have had her period that's why blood on leg)She might have been just beaten up?Please if you can tell me.

[snowwie]

09:40 AM on 04/07/2011

You people are unbelievable.

The strength summoned by the human body when in dire need is amazing. Pure adrenaline from the trauma she experienced would be more than enough to give her the "stamina" to do what she did, no matter how intense the pain. Should she have just lay there waiting to die? No, she had the instinct to survive.

For you to expect her to be thinking straight to go to the hospital enough after the horrific experience she claims to went through is laughably unreasonable. Yes, she is educated - and I think that is EXACTLY why she caused a scene. She knew she didn't ask for it, she knew it wasn't her fault, she knew that she deserved justice. I applaud her courage.

[Mithrall]

11:56 AM on 04/07/2011

The moment someone uses; "You people" they should automatically be considered to have lost the argument. She is simply asking questions hoping to be answered by facts. Instead you browbeat her and answer her questions with complete conjecture. If you'd actually bothered to read more of the news regarding her you could have answered some of the questions intelligently, but why bother when you can just speculate and be judgemental of others asking questions?

[shadowkitteh]

05:33 PM on 04/07/2011

Maybe if she went to the hospital first they would have contacted the police who might have been more concerned about controlling media coverage than pursuing her attackers? With so many factors to this incident, why not just take her at her word and demand the authorities investigate as they should?

[Eris23Skidoo]

08:17 PM on 04/07/2011

Because baggers always blame rape victims first. It's part of their general hatred of women that comes from being conservative bigots.

[Rick Darcy]

03:18 AM on 04/07/2011

Many people need to do a lot more research and they need to stop gobbling up everything that the media feeds them without doing enough due diligence. This woman (Iman al-Obeidi) may be telling the truth or she may be a liar. Remember the Kuwaiti woman, years ago, who was screaming and crying about the Iraqi troops pulling babies out of their incubators in the hospitals? This was prior to the Gulf War #1 and everybody was horrified by this story. The Kuwaiti woman was spewing this lie to the International media and the International media was eating it up like it was their last supper. Years later, the woman admitted that the whole story was a big lie!! I wish the media followed up their reporting about the Kuwaiti woman’s false statements and crocodile tears with the same fervor. Just saying…Don't be blind sheeple, people.

[John Prewett]

02:26 AM on 04/07/2011

http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/hotel-defends-claim-it-failed-to-protect-staffer-in-rape-case?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Daily%2BNewsletter%2B01-04-2011

http://www.faithfreedom.org/features/news/uae-an-australian-woman-spent-8-months-in-jail-after-being-raped/

Jailing [if not killing] the rape victim is the Islamic norm.

[Eris23Skidoo]

08:19 PM on 04/07/2011

The fact that they jailed her for being a rape victim adds to the authenticity of her story. I wish these baggers would follow your links instead of blaming the victim. I guess they are all Sarah Palin fans and think women should pay for their own rape kits. Good grief.

[kenhamlett]

11:39 PM on 04/06/2011

Something about this simply does not ring true. She is on TV and in touch with reporters a lot for someone who fears for her life and someone who says a murderous government is after her. If her claims are true, it is a horrible story. But, she keeps escaping and going back on TV. She says the Ghadafy government is still after her. She is in a city the government controls. If they were really after her, would she still be free to come and go and appear on CNN?Would she even still be alive? If it was me, it was real, and I escaped, I think I would lie low or get out of the country before making my next TV appearance.

[MBG-9]

12:08 PM on 04/07/2011

It's on CNN for 5 hours a nite, so it must be true...

[shadowkitteh]

05:36 PM on 04/07/2011

If you lie low, you disappear without a trace. By getting her face on TV, and her name known, at least she can count on the western press to keep tabs on her. The government would have a hard time harming her now without it being international news. It was a smart move on her part.

[kenhamlett]

06:41 PM on 04/07/2011

We attacked the country because they were so ruthless that they could not be trusted not to murder their own citizens, even under the full scrutiny and watchful eyes of the world. Yet, in this case, they hauled this woman away -- at least twice -- then released her. According to her own claims, they also have followed and harassed her, but she is still alive and able to be on TV. If her claims are true, I certainly feel sorry for her. But, if her claims are true, then the Libyan government is not quite as murderous and threatening as we claimed them to be in the run-up to war. Something about it still seems odd to me. After the beginning of the Iraq War, our media and our government told us about the ordeal of Jessica Lynch. Her story was harrowing, but it certainly helped solidify support for the war. Of course, once Ms. Lynch returned to this country, she told us the stories were all lies -- not made up by her, but made up by the press and the government. I think it is a good trait -- not a sign of dimness, as some would believe -- to be skeptical of stories in the early days of war that seem to justify the reasons for war.

[Dick Stone]

09:01 PM on 04/06/2011

I just hope this woman got adequate medical treatment, if all of the things she says happened she probably has some serious injuries.

[wonderfullone]

12:23 AM on 04/07/2011

She might need plastic surgery.

[MHT73]

06:35 PM on 04/06/2011

What about the women that she was imprisoned with, and who helped her escape??? Are they still being held captive? It seemed from the initial video that helping rescue them was one of her prime reasons for going public with the information about her rape. I truly hope they're not being forgotten in this horror show, or that they haven't been killed just to keep the information from getting out.

[Blackboot]

05:54 PM on 04/06/2011

If you mods aren't going to let me defend my position, why did you let my first post come through in the first place? to create controversy? I should be able to elaborate/defend my position. I can see that my avatar is off this article and that you have further blocked my efforts to comment at all on this issue and that is wrong as I have tried to defend my position 3 times now without success. One sided I guess? If this post gets thru I will be shocked and who cares it's too late anyway. These people commenting on my post think I'm some woman hating man, if they only knew they were replying to a victim herself, but hey you mods get to decide what gets thru and what doesn't hope this lame false power you think you have makes you feel important or whatever it is your looking for. No transparency here......... get a real job one sided mods, you know who you are....

[Eris23Skidoo]

08:21 PM on 04/07/2011

If what you are saying was true they'd have never let this post, as critical of them as it is, get through.

[consequenceofsounds]

04:11 PM on 04/06/2011

Amazing that there are still people insisting that she is making this up. I'm sorry, but what bring required to make you believe her, you guys personally inspecting her?

[Eris23Skidoo]

08:22 PM on 04/07/2011

They won't believe her unless they were personally there gang-raping her themselves.

[shylove2]

03:00 PM on 04/06/2011

She is speaking to the wrong people we specialize in raping countries...

[Eris23Skidoo]

08:22 PM on 04/07/2011

I get that you're being sarcastic but I can't believe that got through the censors.

[Mrclouds]

02:07 PM on 04/06/2011

the founding fathers would be ashamed that Obama Broke the Treaty Of Tripoli than again Obama isn't a legal born US citizen.

[Sir Guy Grand]

02:39 PM on 04/06/2011

Seek help.

[ImConfused]

07:10 PM on 04/06/2011

Back on the pipe are we?