Why gaddafi has female bodyguards

He had deposed the Senussi government in but Gaddafi had not quite quieted the repercussions of his action by the early s. The story added verve and glory to the image of the nuns. And then you would say however they are trained. Writing for Digitaljournal. The women who qualify for duty are required to be virgins and must be hand picked by Qaddafi himself. It should come as very little surprise that in selecting who gets to put their life on the line for the president, some moral and spiritual significance is attached to a woman who has never had sex.

In recent times, however, it has been reported that becoming a member of the guard was not optional for some women. They are pried away from their families at the threat of dire consequences should they refuse. They are raped , sometimes by Gaddafi himself and other times by members in his power circle. His mother was apparently an archer. This battalion of female guards were often called his 'Amazon Guards' or at times -- the 'Revolutionary Nuns'.

Whether he was under siege or on the offensive, Muammar Gaddafi is always surrounded by his female bodyguards. The female bodyguards are not just to add some style to the dictators entourage. A 'flamboyant' Colonel Gaddafi, frequently pictured with female bodyguards, said women were not equal to men because they were biologically different, but he nevertheless exhibited them as a symbol of the success of the Libyan revolution.

None had a higher profile than his phalanx of female bodyguards, who wore camouflage fatigues, red nail polish and high-heeled sandals, and carried submachine guns. Here's a look at the women who became synonymous with Gaddafi's political reign. Colonel Gaddafi, protected by his bodyguards, gives a press conference at the end of a bilateral meeting with the chairman of the European Commission in On a private island in the Pacific Ocean, we talked to Lutz Kayser, a German rocket designer who worked for Gaddafi in the s.

Mr Kayser says: "He was a very nice, modest person and I had the impression he was hiding his weakness behind a facade. Mr Kayser's wife, Susanne, says Gaddafi was "charming and could charm the birds out of the trees" but she said he later became disillusioned when he failed to set up a "utopia" in Libya.

In Havana we interviewed Frank Terpil, an American fugitive from justice who ran a "Murder Incorporated" operation for Gaddafi in the s, killing Libyan dissidents abroad. Mr Terpil said: "Gaddafi thought that anybody who was a dissident was going to be eliminated. He had contracts out on a bunch of people in London. And after pursuing him for months, we finally reached Urs Tinner, a Swiss engineer who worked for Abdul Qadeer Khan, once called the most dangerous man in the world.

Mr Khan developed nuclear weapons for Pakistan and later offered nuclear technology to any country with the money to pay. Gaddafi was his most lucrative client. Mr Tinner says he was not aware Mr Khan was a "nuclear proliferator" but when he realised he tipped off the CIA, who intercepted a ship with final parts for a centrifuge. We also unearthed evidence of Gaddafi's sexual abuse of young girls. And one of his female bodyguards, who now lives in hiding, told us she ended up fearing him: "[One night] we were going to witness the execution of 17 students.

They did not hang them. They shot them. We were forbidden to scream.