Video: Gaddafi loyalists attack woman - and journalists - in Tripoli hotel

THE FOLLOWING IS a video recorded by a journalist at the Rixos Al Nasr hotel in central Tripoli. It’s a fairly luxurious hotel, currently housing much of the world’s media seeking temporary accommodation to cover the ongoing hostilities in Libya.

Foreign journalists were having breakfast in the hotel’s restaurant yesterday when a Benghazi woman, named by the Guardian as Iman al-Obeidi, burst in and showed journalists bruising and cuts on her legs, claiming she had been sexually assaulted.

She is then followed in by Gaddafi loyalists, who try to disperse the media as they accuse her of treachery against Gaddafi. In the resulting scenes, the journalists are attacked – with a CNN cameraman having his equipment smashed.

Other staff from the Financial Times and Channel 4 were assaulted in the incident. Obeidi was driven away – her handlers saying she was being taken to hospital, Obeidi herself saying she was being brought to jail.