Eman al-Obeidi escaped Moammar Gadhafi's dictatorship and became
a symbol of freedom of the Libyan revolution. But four years later in America,
she is no longer free.
A Colorado judge
sentenced al-Obeidi Wednesday to six years in prison for assaulting two women
last year in a Boulder bar. She
was facing a maximum prison term of 16 years on the felony charge, but
prosecutor Jonathon Martin opted for leniency, which the courts have shown her
before.
Al-Obeidi, 32,
who now goes by the alias Eman Ali, was supposed to have been sentenced July 31,
but she refused to appear in court. In a highly unusual move, Boulder District
Judge Andrew Macdonald ordered the sentencing to be held at the county jail,
where al-Obeidi has been confined since January.
Martin said his
office took into consideration her history as a refugee fleeing a war-torn
nation.
"She has injured two women in a violent way, so we had to
punish her," Martin said. "But I thought she needed to be sentenced
at the lower end."
Macdonald told
al-Obeidi that she presented a "level of danger that needs to be
addressed," according to a report in Boulder's Daily Camera newspaper.
Al-Obeidi became
known to the world on the morning of March 26, 2011, six weeks after a Libyan
uprising against Gadhafi erupted in the eastern city of Benghazi. She burst
into the Rixos Hotel in Tripoli, hysterical. She told foreign journalists
staying at the hotel that Gadhafi's men had raped and tortured her and she
pleaded for help.
She personified
courage as the woman who broke Libyan societal taboos in speaking openly about
a horrific sex crime. She was hailed as a hero for defying Gadhafi.
Several months
later, she arrived in New York with the help of then-Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton and sought political asylum.
She settled in
Colorado, but from the very beginning her life was laced with trouble.
Staffers at the
refugee agency that took her case said she felt entitled and did not understand
why she had to live by the rules. She failed to show up for job interviews. She
abused alcohol and was arrested several times for disorderly conduct, resisting
arrest and assault.
She refused to
take advantage of court-offered treatment and counseling programs, Martin said.
In February
2014, she confronted two patrons at the Bohemian Biergarten in downtown
Boulder. She poured her beer on one of the customers and later threw a glass at
the other, leaving a bloody gash serious enough for sutures.
CNN's attempts
to speak with al-Obeidi in July were unsuccessful. She refused to take calls,
even though she had been grateful earlier for the coverage the network gave her
in Libya and after her arrival in the United States.
At her trial in
May, al-Obeidi claimed self-defense but the jury found her guilty.
"I took into
account the sociopolitical circumstances," Martin said. "I think that
was worth some consideration. I do think there are mental health issues that
need to be addressed. And there's an alcohol abuse issue that needs to be
addressed."
Martin said al-Obeidi
has demonstrated a pattern of aggressive behavior, accumulating five arrests.
While she was behind
bars, she attacked a fellow inmate and is facing another pending criminal
charge.
"She caused quite a stir back then," Martin said.
A telephone
conversation she had on June 15 with a friend is revealing about al-Obeidi's
state of mind and was played in court Wednesday. The Boulder County jail
recorded the call, and CNN obtained a part of it through an open records
request.
Al-Obeidi can be
heard telling a friend about how she assaulted her cellmate a few days earlier.
She laughs throughout the conversation as though she were describing a funny
incident.
"I was in
lockdown, I just got out today ..." she said.
Her friend asked
her why.
"Because I
choked a f*****g b***h. I let her sleep, then after one hour, she sleep, I
jumped on her, I sit on her, on top of her, and then I put my knee in her
f*****g throat. She cannot scream."
Then al-Obeidi
said she put her other knee on her cellmate's chest.
"And I
f*****g took her head up and down, up and down, and I put her head in the
mattress. She couldn't breathe any more. She couldn't call the cops. She had to
say 'hhhelllpp ... hhhelllppp,' " al-Obeidi said, mocking the woman.
Al-Obeidi's
words were a stark contrast to the woman who had described her own torture four
years ago, when she told CNN about how Gadhafi's men had beaten her for two
days, sodomized her with a rifle and how frightened she was that they would
kill her.
Given al-Obeidi's
recent history, Martin said the judge decided not to force her to be
transported to court after she refused to appear in July.
She will now be
taken to a diagnostic facility in Denver, evaluated and eventually sent to a
Colorado correctional facility to serve out her term.
The prison term
puts a halt to the hopes al-Obeidi said she held in her heart. Of earning a
degree from the University of Colorado, getting a good job, helping her family
in Libya. Her American dream is now a nightmare and even when she leaves
prison, she will have to navigate life -- already proven difficult for her --
as a convicted felon.
Al-Obeidi's
story is among several in the book "Now That We Have Tasted Hope," a
compilation of essays, blogs and poetry from the Arab Spring.
The Arab Spring
gave way to a brutal Arab Winter, plunging nations like Libya into conflict. In
the shadow of that despair, al-Obeidi declared she liked nothing in Colorado.
She admitted that sometimes she got so depressed she didn't leave her apartment
for days.
Those who spent
time with her when she first settled in Colorado said they could see she was
crying out for help. But she is no longer in touch with those people, including
the refugee agency in Denver that had her case.
Al-Obeidi's
behavior, said Martin, has been poor. For that, she is now paying a heavy price.
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