THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Around 20 Italian models drank warm camel's milk and stargazed in the Sahara Desert on a two-week all expenses paid trip to Libya which was hosted by Muammar Gaddafi, it emerged on Friday.
The women said they were treated "like queens" by the Libyan leader but encountered no evidence of so-called "bunga-bunga" sex parties.
The phrase has become part of Italy's national vocabulary after it was claimed that Silvio Berlusconi learned of the "harem-style rituals" from his friend, Col Gaddafi, and hosted similar soirées at his mansion near Milan.
The aspiring starlets stayed in five-star hotels and resorts, riding on camels and posing for pictures in front of giant posters of Col Gaddafi and the Italian prime minister. They were among several hundred showgirls who were recruited over the last 12 months by a Rome-based agency, Hostessweb, to meet Col Gaddafi during his visits to Italy.
He subjected them to rambling lectures on the superiority of Islam and the wisdom of the Koran before issuing an open invitation to visit Libya.
The women who took up the offer said they shared a breakfast of camel's milk and palm dates with the Libyan leader and that sex games were definitely not on the agenda. "The truth is that he treated us as queens," said Clio Evans, 24, an Anglo-Italian actress who has visited Libya on several occasions. "We sat in a tent and joked and laughed for ages." Miss Evans' father is from Yorkshire. >>> Nick Squires in Rome | Friday, November 12, 2010
