Video Qaddafi's Academy for Bodyguards

This military jacket is all that is left of the memories of Amira, a young woman who studied at the police officers academy before joining Muammar Qaddafi's Revolutionary Guards. Amira, who had resigned from her post before the uprising began, had said that the job of being Qaddafi's bodyguards attracted poor women who had no other source of income available to them.

Her sister Inas got a job at the airport in Tripoli after graduating from the same academy, unlike the majority of her classmates who got jobs as Qaddafi's bodyguards after graduation.

These two sisters accompanied Al-Arabiya on a tour of the police officers academy which is today being guarded by fighters of the National Transitional Council.

Qaddafi's regime gathered all the graduates of the academy as well as serving police officers and Revolutionary Guards and ordered them to fight the NTC fighters.

All that seems left from that time are certificates of appreciation belonging to former students.

Al Arabiya asked the sisters about the rumors that Qaddafi raped his female guards, a charge Amira said she knew nothing about. She did, however, say that the former Libyan leader was always trying to get people attention in various ways.

"I have heard of that a lot. When I went to revolutionary guards, my family strongly objected because they were worried about me. I came from the east, from the al-Hasi tribe and I lived in Tripoli. Of course, I wanted to work and do something, so I had to join the revolutionary Guards after I could no longer get into the police academy. They sent us for training to Benghazi. There were 700 men and four women. When the uprising began, they called everyone of us to service. They know all about us, our backgrounds and where we live. If you don't show up, they come get you, and they send you to what they call the frontline. They called the reserve forces, given arms some of them were paid," said Amira.

The students at the academy expressed renewed hope about their future after Qaddafi's fall. They hoped to graduate and pledge their allegiance to the patriots of a new Libya.


Original report: Ahmed Bagato


Adaptation: Sara Sfeir


Voice: Noora Faraj, Nadia Idriss Mayen


By Ahmed Bagato and Noora Faraj

Al Arabiya