BDSM Library - Story: Laura Loghan - Tells it all on TV, Chapter: Part 1

Laura Loghan, the Actual Television Interview.

This is a pretty accurate transcript of the actual television interview of our intrepid multiple rape victim.

(Following this is a revised and I believe much improved version.)

Laura: When we drove from the airport into Cairo that night, moments after Mubarak had stepped down, it was unbelievable. It was like unleashing a champagne cork on Egypt. I'm anxious to get to the square. I've got to be there because this is a moment in history that you don't want to miss.

Interviewer: What does it look like?

Laura: It looks like a party. It's a roar of sound because everyone's so excited. Sounds of the revolution. Shouting slogans. And everybody was very physical. So you're being jostled and pushed and sometimes people get closer. My guys are very protective of me. They keep people at bay. It was impossible to not get caught up in the moment which was a real moment of celebration.

I: Tell me about your team.

(I: equals Interviewer.)

Laura: Our producer was Max Brown. My cameraman was Richard Sempkin. We had a local fixer, Baha, to bridge the divide for us as foreigners. We had two Egyptian drivers who were purely there to act as security and body-guards. And then we had a security person, Ray, who'd done security all over the world.

Live from my Interview. 'This is what these people have been waiting for. They came here day after day. This is about freedom..'

I: She reported without a hint of trouble for more than an hour.

I: And what happened then?

Laura: Our camera battery went down. And we had to stop for a moment and suddenly Baha looked at me and says, 'We've gotta get out of here'.

I: He's Egyptian. He speaks Arabic and he can hear what the crowd is saying.

Laura: Yes.

I: He understands what no one else in the crew understands.

Laura: That's right. And I was told later that, hum, they were saying, 'Let's take her pants off'. And it's like suddenly, before I even know what's happening I feel hands grabbing my breasts. Grabbing my crotch. Grabbing me from behind. I mean and it's, it's not, y'know, only one person and then it stops. One person and then another person and another and another. A whole bunch and I know Ray's right there and he's swinging and yelling, 'Hold on to me. Hold onto me.'

I: As she was pulled into the frenzy, the camera recorded her shout.

Lara: Shouts - Stop. Stop. God stop.

Laura: And I'm screaming. Thinking if I scream, if they know, they're gonna stop. Y'know, someone's gonna stop them. Well they're gonna stop themselves because this is wrong and it was the opposite. The more I screamed, it turned them into a frenzy.

I: Someone in the crowd shouted that she was an Israeli. A Jew. Neither is true but to the mob, it was a match to gasoline and the savage assault turned into a murderous furry.

I: Ray reported that he found himself with the sleeve of your jacket in his hand. It had been completely ripped from the rest of the jacket.

Laura: I felt at that moment that Ray was my only hope of survival. Y'know, he was looking at me and I could see his face and we had a sea of people between us, obviously tearing at both of us. Beating us. I.. I didn't even know that they were beating me with, hum, flagpoles and sticks and things because I couldn't even feel that because I think of the, of the sexual assault, that was all that I could feel was their hands raping me over and over and over again.

I: Raping you with their hands?

Laura: Yes.

I: Non-stop?

Laura: From the front. From the back. And, hum, I didn't know if I could hold onto Ray. (She starts to cry.) I'm holding onto him. I didn't want to let go of him. (She cries more, almost starts to blubber.) I thought I was gonna die if I lost hold of him.

I: But in that moment, Ray, a special forces soldier was torn away.

Laura: When I lost Ray, I thought that was the end. It was like all the adrenalin left my body because I knew in his face when he lost me he knew, he thought I was gonna die. They were tearing my body in every direction at this point, tearing my muscles and they were trying to tear off chunks of my scalp. They had my head in different directions..

I: Pulling at your hair?

Laura: Oh yeah, and not trying to pull out my hair, holding big wads of it, trying to tear my scalp off my skull. And I thought. When I thought, I'm gonna die here and my next thought was I can't believe, I can't believe I just let them kill me. That was as much fight as I had. That I just gave in and I gave up on my children so easily. Why'd you do that? I said to myself.

I: Your daughter and your son are one and two years old.

Laura: I had to, fight for them and that's when I said, OK it's about staying alive now. So I just surrendered to the sexual assault. What more can they do? They're inside you. Everywhere. So the only thing to fight for, left to fight for, was my life.

I: It was a fight she endured for over an hour.

Laura: I was no doubt in my mind that I was in the process of dying. I thought not only am I gonna die here, but it's gonna be just a torturous death that's gonna go on forever and ever and ever.

I: Lara was dragged along by the mob until they were stopped by a fence. At that spot, a group of Egyptian women were camped out.

Laura: And, and I almost fell into the lap of this, hum, woman on the ground who was head to toe in black. Just her eyes. I remember just her eyes, I could see.

I: Wearing the chedore.

Laura: Yes, and hum, she put her arms around me and, ah, oh my God, I can't tell you what that moment was like for me. I wasn't safe yet because the mob was still trying to get at me, but now it wasn't just about me, anymore. It was about their women. That was what saved me, I think. Hum, the women kinda closed ranks around me and I remember one or two, maybe three men standing with them and the women were throwing water on the crowd and they were pouring water over me because I, I couldn't breath, y'know, because I was rasping.

I: By this time her team had convinced a group of soldiers to go in after her.

Laura: Finally. Finally some soldiers fought their way through the crowd with batons beating the mob back and, hum, and that was the moment I thought I have a chance to get out of here alive and I grabbed the first soldier and I did not let him go. Boy, I was not letting go of him and I'm screaming and hysterical. I'm like a wild thing at this point. I mean, you can imagine, my hair is everywhere because they tried to tear my scalp to pieces. My clothes are shredded. I'm filthy black with dirt from going down into the filth.

I: The soldiers took you out of there?

Laura: That one soldier that I was holding onto, he threw me over his back and, ah, they still had to beat the mob back to get through it, back to the tent and where they had more soldiers.

I: What happened in that moment when you were first reunited with the rest of the crew?

Laura: I remember Max going down on his knees in front of me and saying I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. (She cried again.)

I: By the time producer Max McLellan saw Lara she was in the arms of one of the drivers, dangling as if her legs were broken.

Max: She looked like, huh, a rag-doll. She looked completely limp. She looked like someone who was, ah, physically, emotionally and mentally spent. Overwhelmed. She had.. (He couldn't say anymore he still felt so guilty.)

I: The soldiers drove Lara and her news team back to their hotel where a doctor examined her.

Max: She was basically, ah, sore, ah, everywhere. Head to toe. It was like, it was like she'd been through some sort of grinder.

I: The next morning, Max and Lara flew back to the US. - When you landed in Washington. You didn't go home? You went straight to the hospital.

Laura: I stayed there for four days, which was hard. My muscles were so unbelievably sore because they were literally stretched from the mob trying to tear my limbs off my body. My joints. Every joint in my body was distended and then they, hum, the more intimate, hum, injuries. The injuries, the tearing inside. Hum, (She's almost in tears.) and the mark of their hands, their fingers, all over my body. Cuts and everything you could imagine but no broken bones.

I: Tell me about that moment when you saw your children again.

Laura: I felt like I'd been given a second chance that I didn't deserve. Then I, because I did that to them. I came so close to leaving them. To abandoning them.

I: Do you feel like you're healing now?

Laura: Oh definitely. I'm, I'm so much stronger .

I: That night her attackers faded away into the crowd. It's not likely anyone involved will be brought to justice. We may never know, with certainty, whether the regime was targeting the reporter or whether it was simply and savagely a criminal mob. It is true that in Egypt, in particular, sexual harassment and violence are common.

Laura: I had no idea how systemic, that it is so rife, so widespread. That so many Egyptian men, hum, admit to sexually harassing women and think it's completely acceptable. In fact beating the women for it.

I: Why are you telling the story now?

Laura: One thing that I'm extremely proud of, that I didn't intend, is when, hum, my female colleagues stood up and said that I'd broken the silence on what all of us have experienced but never talk about.

I: What do they mean by that?

Laura: That women never complain about incidents of sexual violence because we don't want someone to say, well hum, women shouldn't be out there. But I think there are a lot of women who experience these kinds of things and still they don't want it to stop them from doing their job because they go through the same reasons as we do. They are committed to what they do. They are not adrenalin junkies. They're not glory hounds. They do it because they believe in being, hum, journalists

The end of the actual televised interview.

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Laura Loghan, the Television Interview. (Revised for the better)

And now comes the good stuff. The parts that were too graphic and too disturbing so they had to be left out of the broadcast.

Laura: When we drove from the airport into Cairo that night, moments after Mubarak had stepped down, it was unbelievable. It was like unleashing a champagne cork on Egypt. So I'm anxious to get to the square. I've got to be there because this is a moment in history that you don't want to miss.

Interviewer: What does it look like?

Laura: It looks like a party. It's a roar of sound because everyone's so excited. Sounds of the revolution. Shouting slogans. And everybody was very physical. So you're being jostled and pushed and sometimes people get closer. Even put their hands on your shoulder. My guys are very protective of me. They keep people at bay. It was impossible to not get caught up in the moment which was a real moment of celebration.

I: Tell me about your team.

(I: equals Interviewer.)

Live from my Interview. 'This is what these people have been waiting for. They came here day after day. This is about freedom..'

I: She reported without a hint of trouble for more than an hour.

I: And what happened then?

Laura: Our camera battery went down. And we had to stop for a moment and suddenly Baha looked at me and says, 'We've gotta get out of here'.

I: He's Egyptian. He speaks Arabic and he can hear what the crowd is saying?

Laura: Yes.

I: He understands what no one else in the crew understands?

Laura: That's right. And I was told later that, hum, they were saying, they were starting to say, 'Let's take her pants off. Let's rape her. Fuck the bitch. Let's fuck the bitch. Cut her fucking tits off.' And it's really evil, truly misogynistic. And it's like suddenly, before I even know what's happening someone has ripped my pearls off. They're from my mom so they mean something special to me and I want to see who stole them. But then I feel a hand inside my shirt and bra ripping at my breast, gouging my nipple. Someone else pulls my denim jacket up and they've got me like all twisted, all tangled up, in it. And then, and then, (She starts to cry.) and then someone punched me. They punched me hard in the belly, and again and they're pulling me. They're pulling me back and away by my hair. I feel hands grabbing my breasts. So many hands. Grabbing my crotch. Grabbing me from behind. I mean and it's, it's not, y'know, only one person and then it stops. One person and then another person and another and another. A whole bunch at once and I know Ray's right there and he's swinging and yelling, 'Hold on to me. Hold onto me. Don't let go whatever you do.'

I: As she was pulled into the frenzy, the camera recorded her shouts.

Laura: Shouts - Stop. Stop. God stop it.

I: Someone in the crowd shouted that she was an Israeli. A Jew. Neither is true but to the mob, it was a match to gasoline and the savage assault turned into a murderous furry. She was a woman who needed to die. To be punished first and then to die.

Laura: I have one arm on Ray. I've lost the fixer. I've lost the drivers, I've lost everybody except him and I feel them tearing at my clothing and my shirt. My sweater was torn off completely, my shirt was around my neck. Hum, I felt the moment that my bra tore. They tore the metal, ah, clips of my bra. They tore those open and I felt that because the air, I felt the air on my chest, on my skin and my breasts were naked and being pulled. Being squeezed and even punched. They were punching me in my breasts and, ah, I felt them tear out, they literally just tore my pants to shreds and then I felt, hum, my underwear go. Oh God, they tore my panties off and lunged for my vagina. Thy squeezed and crushed at my labia lips and ripped them apart like they wanted to tear them off. They hated my vagina and I don't know why. (She starts to sob.) And I remember looking up, when, when my clothes gave way, I remember looking up and seeing them taking pictures with their cell phones, the flashes of their cell phone cameras. Some were close up taking pictures of my bared crotch.

I: Ray reported that he found himself with the sleeve of your jacket in his hand. It had been completely ripped from the rest of the jacket.

Laura: I felt at that moment that Ray was my only hope of survival. Y'know, he was looking at me and I could see his face and we had what seemed like a sea of people between us, obviously tearing at both of us. Beating us. I.. I didn't even know that they were beating me with, hum, flagpoles and sticks and things because I couldn't even feel that because I think of the, of the sexual assault, that was all that I could feel was their hands raping me over and over and over again.

I: Raping you with their hands?

Laura: Yes. Yes at first and then they got me flat on the ground and they forced my naked legs apart. They forced them so far apart I thought my hip joints were going to dislocate and them this bastard, this grinning, slimy bastard, he's over me. He's taking down his pants. His underpants too and he has his penis hovering over me. Over my vagina. But I'm kicking and I'm thrashing so he can't get into me and some other guy he kicks me. He kicks me really hard in the side of my breast. He had boots on. And then another guy does the same thing. My breast exploded in pain and blood came out of my nipple.

I: He's raping you? Non-stop?

Laura: No not yet. He's not inside me yet. I won't let him. But the hands. All the hands from the front. From the back. And, hum, I didn't know if I could hold onto Ray. (She starts to cry.) I'm holding onto him. I've still got a hold of his foot. Just his foot. I didn't want to let go of him. (She cries more, almost starts to blubber.) I thought I was gonna die if I lost hold of him.

I: But in that moment, Ray, a special forces soldier was torn away. There was no one left to protect her.

Laura: When I lost Ray, I thought that was the end. It was like all the adrenalin left my body because I knew in his face when he lost me he knew, he thought, I was gonna die. They were tearing my body in every direction at this point, tearing my muscles and they were trying to tear off chunks of my scalp. They had my head in different directions, twisting it all about. Some were choking me too.

I: Pulling at your hair?

I: Your daughter and your son are one and two years old.

Laura: I had to, fight for them and that's when I said, OK it's about staying alive now. So I just surrendered to the sexual assault. The guy, he's over me and he feeds his penis to my vagina. But he doesn't just enter me. He rams into me like he's trying to rupture my cervix. I mean he really hated women and once he got going all his buddies were cheering him on. They really thought it was a spectacle, a really good show, to break the white woman and I think he took five minutes before he ejaculated inside of me. As he pulled out he punched me. He punched my face and he punched by breasts. He wanted to smash, it seemed like he wanted to smash the nipples off of my breasts. But then he finished and two other guys started fighting over who would get to do me next. But another guy he kicks me again. In the side of my breast again and so much blood shot out of my nipple I knew I was ruptured inside of my breast. Then the two guys who were fighting over me, they stopped and yelled something and one guy hoisted me to my feet holding me under the arm pits. He gripped my breasts to hold me up. I was like a rag doll. I know I was, and my head lolled forward and the guy pulls my face up and spits in my eye. That's what they thought of me. I was only good enough to spit on. But then, oh God. God, it was so terrible. The other guy he drops to his knees and he punches me. He punches me as hard as he can in my vagina. He smashed my labia lips and then I knew he had ruptured my clitoris which is what I supposed he wanted to do. I don't know why I didn't pass out but I didn't. But the guy holding me up, he spins me around and some other guys hold me up while he penetrates my anus. He begins to rape me in the ass. He did it for at least five minutes too and then after he'd cum he began to choke me from behind. And then came the worst of all up until then. Another guy, a beast, dropped down and bit into my vagina He bit into my labia lip and I think he would have bitten a chunk off but I managed to wrench myself away. Still they kept raping me, I think seven times in all. I'm beaten. I'm broken inside. What more can they do? They're inside me. Everywhere. So the only thing to fight for, left to fight for, was my life. I didn't know if I still could but I had to try.

I: It was a fight she endured for over an hour.

Laura: There was no doubt in my mind that I was in the process of dying. I thought not only am I gonna die here, but it's gonna be just a torturous death that's gonna go on forever and ever and ever. They were so intent on hurting me that that's when it happened.

I: What happened?

Laura: I almost lost my nipples. They were trying to bite my nipples off.

I: And to this day? Did they succeed?

Laura: No. not then. But later. To this day I don't have any nipples anymore.

I: Lara was dragged along by the mob until they were stopped by a fence. At that spot, a group of Egyptian women were camped out.

Laura: And, and I almost fell into the lap of this, hum, woman on the ground who was head to toe in black. Just her eyes. I remember just her eyes, I could see.

I: Wearing the chador.

Laura: Yes, and hum, she put her arms around me and, ah, oh my God, I can't tell you what that moment was like for me. I wasn't safe yet because the mob was still trying to get at me, but now it wasn't just about me, anymore. It was about their women. That was what saved me then, I think. Hum, the women kinda closed ranks around me and I remember one or two, maybe three men standing with them and the women were throwing water on the crowd and they were pouring water over me because I, I couldn't breath, y'know, because I was rasping and coughing.

I: By this time her team had convinced a group of soldiers to go in after her.

Laura: Finally. Finally some soldiers fought their way through the crowd with batons beating the mob back and, hum, and that was the moment I thought I have a chance to get out of here alive and I grabbed the first soldier and I did not let him go. Boy, I was not letting go of him and I'm screaming and hysterical. I'm like a wild thing at this point. I mean, you can imagine, my hair is everywhere because they tried to tear my scalp to pieces. My clothes are gone. I'm exposed and naked. I'm filthy black with dirt from going down into the filth.

I: The soldiers took you out of there?

Laura: That one soldier that I was holding onto, he threw me over his back and, ah, they still had to beat the mob back to get through it, back to the tent and where they had more soldiers. It all seemed like it was going to be OK, but the men, the sexually crazed men had other ideas about me. I suppose they thought they'd never get the chance again for an attractive white woman so something terrible happened. The soldiers were overrun. Some of the men had guns, the mob, and as quickly as I had been rescued they had me again and as it unfolded, three men dragged me away and tossed me into a van. They drove off with me in the back, but not fast. They couldn't drive fast. All the time the two guys in the back with me were probing into my vagina and squeezing my breasts. They laughed and joked with each other as they licked their fingers after having been inside of me. And then they stopped and two more guys piled in on top of me.

I: There were now four, no five, in the van with you?

Laura: That's right, with four of them pawing at me.

I: Where did they take you?

Laura: I don't know exactly where but the drive seemed like forever although it was probably only ten minutes. They pulled into a big, cavernous, commercial, like industrial, building and shut the big garage door behind them. They pulled further in and stopped. Opened the door and dragged me out naked and dumped me on the cold, hard cement floor. They were all laughing and jeering and I could tell I was going to be raped repeatedly and without mercy. Mercilessly. They hated the white woman so much but they loved my body what was left of it. Then even two more guys came from the back of the building. I guess they'd been spreading the word around on their cell phones, y'know to all their buddies like there was a rape-party in progress but one of those two guys with a beard, it soon became evident he was some kind of boss. He had authority over the others.

I: What happened next?

Laura: Next? Next, he said something to the others who were in a circle around me and they started to undress. In five minutes I was surrounded by six, naked Egyptian men all with erections. So I knew I was really in for it then some more. A guy went and got a chair and put it in the middle of the circle. He hoisted me up, even using my breasts for handles, and plunked me down on the chair and then the guy, the head guy, he comes right up to me. He still has his clothes on and he can speak English and pretty good to. He asked me what I thought of them and the new found freedom Egyptians now had and I told him, them, they were pigs. Animals. And that he was a monster.

I: Did you know he was a monster? He hadn't touched you yet, had he?

Laura: No. No, but I knew he was going to. He told me he wanted me to beg. To beg them not to rape me anymore. But I wouldn't. I spat at him which wasn't a very wise thing to do, I suppose. But I had to do something to show I was still a human being.

I: I can't imagine he took that very well.

Laura: No indeed you might say that. He dropped down to his knees and truly hit my breast the hardest yet. It nearly knocked me off the chair it was so deadly. He called two men from the circle and they sprang forward grabbing my arms, stretching them apart while he took aim and punched me again in the same breast just as hard. Even harder I suppose. He even asked me if I liked him smashing my tit? What an idiot. But I did, I guess I begged him not to hit me anymore like that. So he called a guy forward, the guy with the biggest dick and he sat on my lap trying to work it into my vagina but his position wasn't right. All of a sudden he got up and they all moved me further into the building. There was a hoist kind of device there and they tied my wrists to it and pulled my arms up way above my head. But my feet were still just but barely touching the floor. My shoulder joints hurt so much I thought they were going to dislocate. And then I'll never forget. It is seared into my brain, into my mind. The head guy gripped my face and kissed me so meanly and told me, 'We're gonna hurt you bitch. Now we're gonna hurt you more than you ever imagined possible.' And he started to. He used my battered breasts to lift my feet up off the floor and got me way up with his arms straight up and then dropped me. But as he did he jerked his knee up directly into my crotch. He cracked my pubic bone and it really hurt his knee-cap. Then he stepped back and he signalled the first guy who runs up to me and punches my vagina. Then the next guy. And the next guy until they all had hit me at least twice, every time in the crotch and they laughed about it. Every time a fist connected with my vagina they laughed and hooted about it. I couldn't keep on taking it and went pretty well just semi-conscious. But that wasn't good enough. He wanted me to feel it. To know what was happening to me so he signalled for them to stop.

I: And did they stop?

Laura: Yes but not for the reason it seemed. And this is where I feel so betrayed. One of my cameramen who I never liked and he was always on the outside, he'd been there watching and video taping it all the time. They discovered him and pulled him forward to stand in front of me and of them. His name was Jim.

I: Jim? Jim, I don't believe I've heard him mentioned.

Laura: No you haven't. He wasn't a regular. As said I never liked him. How he looked at me and as it turned out for very good reason because rather that wanting to rescue me he wants to join in with them. One of my own wants to rape me too. Said he'd always wanted to and now was a great opportunity for him to get away with it. So he asks the head guy if they'll let him video what's happening to me and they can all have copies and he agrees. Then Jim said he'd like to hurt me too and would they like to watch? I swore at him too and he tells me he's wanted to hurt me, not just rape me, for a long long time. He told me he should bite my nipple off.

I: What did Jim do to you? What did one of your own do to you?'

Laura: He punched my breast. He pulled it out by my nipple and hit me as hard as he could to the underside of my breast and then as I begged him to stop and to help me he told me what I truly thought I could never stand to hear. He told me if they didn't kill me, he would. He said he'd rip my fucking cunt out. And then he said he'd burn it out of me too, and, and the boss guy asked about that and Jim asks him to send a guy off looking for something to burn me with. And he wants some pliers too.

I: Why? Why would he want to hurt you so much?

Laura: Because he says I treated him badly. That I put him down and made him feel small. That I bossed him around when he didn't get my camera angle right. Can you believe it, he wants to torture and kill me for something as trivial as that?

I: But he didn't kill you. We all can see that.'

Laura: No but he was going to if the soldiers hadn't found me again just in time. But God did he ever torture me. Did he ever ruin and mutilate me before they rescued me.

I: You sure you want to go on with this? It's horrible and so disturbing on a deeply human level. Maybe you've had enough.

Laura: No. No, more than anything else I want it on record. What those animals did to me. How horrendously they abused be and Jim, if they ever catch him, he has to pay too.

I: OK, I'm not sure I can take much more. How much more our audience can take, but if you're sure you're still up to it. OK, continue.

Laura: The guy came back with three of those small propane torches you use for around the house repairs. Y'know, the kind you get from Home Depot and he had matches and two pairs of pliers too. He showed them to the boss guy and he told him to give them to Jim. Jim lit a torch and put it close in front of me. I have to say I'd I've never been so scared. I didn't want to be burned, and certainly not sexually which I assumed he intended to do.

I: God, did he burn you?

Laura: Not right away. He told me he was going to burn my vagina, my labia. He loved using the words labia and clitoris.

I: He said he was going to burn your clitoris? God, how horrible. Unimaginably painful.

Laura: Yes. Yes and it really scared me but the boss guy when he heard the word, the word labia, he got all excited and said he wanted to be the first one to burn me. Like they were competing for who would get to do it. And I got mad. I guess it was foolish and I shouldn't have done it but I asked God to help me and he said not God, but Allah and I told him to go fuck Allah. He got really mad and tied to choke me. I was almost passing out when Jim stopped him but the torch was going and the man he grabbed it and burned my nipple. He burned it half away. He got all excited and dropped his pants to rape me and he had the funniest penis. It was curved way off to one side. I had to look it up and it was Peyronie's Disease which occurs when internal scar tissue causes the penis to turn to one side, or up, or down. He had to tear at my vagina to get inside of me but once he did he was viciously mean in raping me. But as he was getting close to the end he called one of his buddies and he came up behind me to bugger me. So while I was being raped in the front I was also being buggered in the behind. That's when I felt the most worthless. Until he had the others do the same thing. One in front, one in the back. Four times more, five in all.

I: Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure you want to go on?

Laura: Yes. Yes I have to because some of the worst part is still to come. Out of nowhere two boys seemed to appear.

I: Boys? You mean, not men?'

Laura: Yes. Yes, boys. Two of them. They were his sons and he planned to initiate them to sex by using me. They got me down, flat on the floor, spread eagled, held and pined and the older boy had the same bent penis as his father when he got an erection. Now I mean he wasn't very big but the symbolism, the metaphor, of it was distressing and unsettling. I mean I was about to be raped again by a boy barely old enough to get an erection but he did and when I wouldn't hold still his father told him to beat my vagina. He hit me three times there before he did it. But the younger boy was the worse problem. He couldn't get an erection to do me next, as much as he tried. His father told him to sit on my knees and gave him a really sharp kirpan like knife. Now I know it wasn't an actual kirpan since that was part of their religion, but the man said what he said and the boy pulled out on one of my labia lips and cut it off. He may have been twelve years old and he mutilated my vagina and they passed that part of my body around between them. He was going to cut the other one off when the older boy who had successfully raped me, he begged to do it which, which he did but then it even got worse. He pushed the knife into me and thrust it through my cervix. I was sure then I was going to die. That there was no possible way for me to live so I made my peace with God. It's hard to believe but three of the adult guys they still wanted to rape me even while I was bleeding out of my cervix and vagina. This they did and all of a sudden I assumed they were done with me because they all began to get dressed. As it turned out it was one of those prayer times. Now how ironic is that? They've just viciously raped and tortured and mutilated a woman yet they had to go pray to their heathen god. But they were done and then shortly they were gone which just left me there with Jim.

I: Were you safe there with him? I assume you weren't.

Laura: I begged and begged him to take me to the hospital but he reminded me of what he had said earlier. That if they didn't kill me, he would. He tried to convince me I didn't want to live anyway, what with how I was mutilated. There was nothing that mattered left of my vagina. My nipple was gone. He asked me why I would want to go on living like that? Then he noticed I still had a nipple and he wanted to be the last one to rape me. If I agreed he said he would take me to a hospital but first he had to rape me. But I was bleeding pretty bad and he noticed the torches and told me he had to cauterize me, to burn where my labia lips had been removed. But he noticed that somehow, miraculously my clitoris was still intact so of course he had to go for that. But he didn't burn me. No, he got his face in my vagina and he bit it. He bit my clitoris off and even showed it to me as he gloated. And then he bit my remaining nipple off. He was pretty well done with me so he smashed my head to the cement floor three of four times and I went catatonic. I'm pretty sure he raped what was left of my vagina but it couldn't have been very satisfying. There was no definition left inside of me. Just mush. I came sort of to later and he was getting set to hoist me up by one foot to hang me upside down. He told me he was going to actually rip my legs off but then he heard something. Like maybe someone was coming. But I passed out again and that was the last I ever saw of him. He was gone and the soldiers were back again to rescue me, as if there was much of me left to rescue. I really was more than half dead. Maybe more like ninety-nine percent.

I: What happened in that moment when you were first reunited with the rest of the crew?

Laura: I remember Max going down on his knees in front of me and saying I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. (She cried again.) He could not believe the condition of my body.

I: By the time producer Max McLellan saw Laura she was in the arms of one of the soldiers, dangling as if her legs were broken.

Max: She looked like, huh, a rag-doll. She looked completely limp. She looked like someone who was, ah, physically, emotionally and mentally spent. Overwhelmed. She had no nipples and her crotch was so bloody. (He couldn't say anymore he still felt so guilty.)

I: The soldiers drove Lara and her news team to a hospital where a doctor examined her. The doctor and the nurses were all in tears. They had never seen a woman so badly, sexually mutilated and abused. They didn't believe she could survive for long. But live she was determined to do, for her children.

Max: She was basically, ah, ruined, ah, everywhere. Head to toe. It was like, it was like she'd been through some sort of grinder.

I: The next morning, Max and Lara flew back to the US. - When you landed in Washington. You didn't go home? You went straight to the hospital.

Laura: I stayed there for fourteen days, which was hard. My muscles were so unbelievably sore because they were literally stretched from the mob trying to tear my limbs off my body. My joints. Every joint in my body was distended and then they, hum, the more intimate, hum, injuries. The mutilations. The missing parts. The injuries, the tearing inside. Hum, (She's almost in tears.) and the mark of their hands, their fingers, all over my body. Cuts and everything you could imagine but no broken bones. But no vagina to speak of either and no nipples. I don't really know if I'm technically still a woman but my spirit is. So is my soul..

I: Tell me about that moment when you saw your children again.

Laura: I felt like I'd been given a second chance that I didn't deserve. Then I, because I did that to them. I came so close to leaving them. To abandoning them.

I: Do you feel like you're healing now?

Laura: Mentally, oh definitely. I'm, I'm so much stronger. But physically, I don't think ever. I mean every time I look in a mirror my breasts are missing their nipples. Every time I have to pee, it hurts so much since my labia lips were taken from me. I heard one guy say he was going to keep it as a souvenir. Another guy said he was going to eat it raw. They even thought about making me eat it. Making me eat part of my own vagina which I would never have done. That they would have to had killed me first.

I: That night her attackers faded away into the crowd. Jim has not been found. It's not likely anyone Egyptian involved will be brought to justice. We may never know, with certainty, whether the regime was targeting the reporter or whether it was simply and savagely a criminal mob. It is true that in Egypt, in particular, sexual harassment and violence to women are common.

I: Why are you telling the story now?

I: What do they mean by that?

Laura: That women never complain about incidents of sexual violence because we don't want someone to say, well hum, women shouldn't be out there by themselves and women shouldn't dress not act a certain way. Successful and capable women. But I think there are a lot of women who experience these kinds of things and still they don't want it to stop them from doing their job because they go through the same reasons as we do. They are committed to what they do. They are not adrenalin junkies. They're not glory hounds. They do it because they believe in being, hum, journalists

Laura looks down to her lap and begins to sob softly.

Is it conceivable that anyone could still want to rape her?

You wanna fucking believe it.