A US woman who said she was raped by US contractors in Iraq testified in Congress, telling legislators that she was kept under armed guard in her trailer after reporting the incident.
WASHINGTON: A US woman who said she was raped by US contractors in Iraq testified in Congress, telling legislators that she was kept under armed guard in her trailer after reporting the incident.
Jamie Leigh Jones, now 23, on Wednesday said that she was gang raped inside the Baghdad Green Zone in July 2005 while she was working for the Halliburton subsidiary KBR Inc, which has support contracts with the US military.
The US Department of Justice failed to send an attorney to the House of Representatives sub-committee hearing, which Democrat John Conyers blasted as 'outrageous' and 'unacceptable.'
Jones told committee members that on her fourth day in Baghdad some co-workers, who she described as Halliburton-KBR firefighters, invited her for a drink. "I took two sips from the drink and don't remember anything after that," she said.
The next morning Jones woke up groggy and confused, and with a sore chest and blood between her legs. She reported the incident to KBR and was examined by an army doctor, who confirmed she had been repeatedly raped vaginally and anally.
The doctor took photographs, made notes, and handed all the evidence over to KBR personnel.
"The KBR security then took me to a trailer and then locked me in a room with two armed guards outside my door," Jones testified. "I was imprisoned in the trailer for approximately a day. One of the guards finally had mercy and let me use a phone."
Jones called her father in Texas, who called his representative in Congress, Republican Ted Poe. Poe contacted the State Department, who quickly sent personnel to rescue Jones and flew her back to Texas.
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