TRIPOLI, Libya — A Libyan woman burst into the hotel housing the foreign press in Tripoli on Saturday morning and fought off security forces as she told journalists that she had been raped and beaten by members of the Qaddafi militia. After nearly an hour, she was dragged away from the hotel screaming...

A wild scuffle ensued, captured in a video published by The Telegraph in London, as journalists tried to interview, photograph and protect her. Several journalists were punched, kicked and knocked on the floor. A television camera belonging to CNN was destroyed in the struggle, and security forces seized a device that a Financial Times reporter had used to record her testimony. A plainclothes security officer pulled out a revolver.

Two members of the hotel staff grabbed table knives to threaten both Ms. Obeidy and the journalists.

“Turn them around, turn them around,” a waiter shouted, trying to block the foreign news media from having access to Ms. Obeidy. A woman on the staff shouted: “Why are you doing this? You are a traitor!” and briefly put a coat over Ms. Obeidy’s head.

There was a prolonged standoff behind the hotel as the security officials apparently restrained themselves because of the presence of so many journalists, but Ms. Obeidy was ultimately forced into a white car and taken away...

Questioned about her treatment, Khalid Kaim, the deputy foreign minister, promised that she would be treated in accordance with the law. Musa Ibrahim, a government spokesman, said that she appeared to be drunk and mentally ill. “Her safety of course is guaranteed,” he said, adding that the authorities were investigating the case, including the possibility that her reports of abuse were “fantasies.”







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