
Young Italian women were paid €3,000 to go on tours of Libya that culminated in visits to Gaddafi's tented compound in the desert.
Maria M, aged 28, declined to give her full name, but allowed the Observer to examine her account of a lavish trip to the Libyan desert in October after she was recruited by the Rome-based agency Hostessweb. In her diary Maria tells of an eccentric week-long tour for which she and 19 other young women were reportedly each paid €3,000.
Six such "cultural" visits to Libya by agency recruits have been organised since Gaddafi visited Rome in 2009. The next is scheduled for next month. On one visit Gaddafi tried to marry off one of his guests to his nephew.
But there also appears to have been a religious motive. "He asked if any of us were interested in converting [to Islam]. We all looked at each other and then, incredibly, two girls rose up, something I never thought they would do," wrote Maria, adding that she believed bonuses had been offered to the "converts".












