Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi told 500 paid hostesses attending a lecture in Rome that Europe should convert to Islam and gave each of them a copy of the Koran, reports the Italian press.<\/p>\n
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Media reports have focussed on aspects like the tent in which Gaddafi sleeps on foreign visits as well as the 30 horses he is bringing to take part in an equestrian show on Monday, when he will meet Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Reuters reports.<\/p>\n
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Reporters and television cameras gathered at a Libyan cultural centre in Rome after a hundreds of young women reportedly recruited by a hostess agency were invited to hear him talk about converting to Islam.<\/p>\n
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“He spoke about an attempt at a general conversion to Islam … Islam is the only religion, that kind of thing,” one told Italian television reporters after the meeting.<\/p>\n
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Three women were said to have undergone “spontaneous conversions,” while others walked out in disgust saying they could “not stand to hear such rubbish.”<\/p>\n
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The event, at the Libyan Academy in Rome, comes nine months after Gaddafi hosted two similar evenings at the official residence of the Libyan ambassador in Rome Abdulhafad Gaddur.<\/p>\n
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At those events the women were paid 50 euros, but for last night’s party and another planned for later this evening the women were given 70 euros \u2014 on condition that they did not speak to the media.<\/p>\n
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The two-day visit is to mark the two-year anniversary of a ‘pact of friendship’ signed between Gaddafi and Berlusconi which has promoted extensive Italian business development in Libya, reports DailyMail.co.uk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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