A distraught Libyan woman stormed into a Tripoli hotel Saturday to tell foreign reporters that government troops raped her, setting off a brawl when hotel staff and government minders tried to detain her.
Iman al-Obeidi was tackled by waitresses and government minders as she sat telling her story to journalists after she rushed into the restaurant at the Rixos hotel where a number of foreign journalists were eating breakfast.
She claimed loudly that troops had detained her a checkpoint, tied her up, abused her, then led her away to be gang raped.
"Look at what Gadhafi's militias did to me," al-Obeidi screamed with tears in her eyes, pulling up her coat to show blood on her upper leg in the restaurant.
After being intimidated by security men and hotel staff, who also beat journalists trying to interview her, she was eventually bundled into a car and driven away.
Her story could not be independently verified, but the dramatic scene provided a rare firsthand glimpse of the brutal crackdown on public dissent by Moammar Gadhafi's regime as the Libyan leader fights a rebellion against his rule that began last month.
The regime has been keeping up a drumbeat of propaganda in the Tripoli-centered west of the country under its control even as it faces a weeklong international air campaign against the Libyan military.
Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim originally said that investigators told him al-Obeidi was drunk and seemed to be suffering mentally, but he retreated from that position later Saturday. He said she was in safe custody and her claims were being investigated but as a criminal, not a political case.
Her face heavily bruised, al-Obeidi said she had been arrested at a checkpoint in Tripoli because she was from the city of Benghazi, bastion of the insurgency against Gadhafi's rule.
"They swore at me and they filmed me. I was alone. There was whiskey," she said, weeping and stretching out her arms to show scars.
"They defecated and urinated on me and tied me up," she said, "They violated my honor, look at what the Gadhafi militiamen did to me."
Al-Obeidi, who appeared to be in her 30s and was wearing a loose black coat and slippers, said she had been raped by 15 men and held for two days.
"I am not scared of anything. I will be locked up immediately after this," Obaidi shouted. "Look at my face. Look at my back. All of my body is bruised."
As she spoke, sobbing and shaking, hotel staff and plainclothes security men tried to push and intimidate her. She ran from one table to another in the hotel restaurant.
As al-Obeidi spoke, a hotel waitress brandished a butter knife, a government minder reached for his handgun and another waitress pulled a jacket tightly over her head.
The waiters called her a traitor and told her to shut up. She retorted: "Easterners — we're all Libyan brothers, we are supposed to be treated the same, but this is what the Gadhafi militiamen did to me, they violated my honor."
It soon turned into a scene of chaos with journalists attempting to protect the woman from government minders who physically attacked and intimidated her.
Journalists who tried to intervene were pushed out of the way by the minders. A British television reporter was punched, and CNN's camera was smashed on the ground and ripped to pieces by the government minders.
Al-Obeidi was eventually forced into a garden outside the hotel. Journalists trying to get to her were pushed away.
"Leave me alone," she shouted at security men, as one man tried to cover her mouth with his hand.
She was then dragged to a parking lot and bundled into a white car. Security men said they were taking her to hospital.
"They are taking me to jail," she yelled, struggling with the security guards. "They are taking me to jail."
Later, the government spokesman said al-Obeidi was "safe and well" with the criminal investigation bureau.
"As far as we know she is a sane person, she is in good health, she has serious claims about four or five individuals," he said. "Those claims are being investigated. We believe this is not political case, this is a criminal case, a lawyer has been offered to her."
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.