VICIOUS ATTACK: CBS News reporter Lara Logan was beaten with flagpoles.I (AP)
VICIOUS ATTACK: CBS News reporter Lara Logan (above) was beaten with flagpoles. (Retna Digital)
VICIOUS ATTACK:CBS News reporter Lara Logan (above, just before the Cairo attack) was beaten with flagpoles. (CBS)
War reporter Lara Logan was stripped and beaten with makeshift poles used to fly flags during the celebration of the downfall of Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak, according to new details of her sex attack in Cairo’s Tahrir Square almost two weeks ago.
CBS News’ 39-year-old chief foreign correspondent also was kicked, punched, slapped, pinched and her hair pulled out while a crowd of about 200 chanted “Jew, Jew, Jew” and accused her of being an Israeli spy, according to The Times of London.
Logan is not Jewish.
Doctors say welts on Logan’s body, originally thought to be bites, are consistent with being whipped and beaten with the flagpoles.
Logan has also reportedly told relatives in her native Durban, South Africa, of her life’s “darkest nightmare.”
“The attack was so sudden, I had no chance of escaping,” she told them, according to South Africa’s Independent Online.
Logan told colleagues she escaped being raped when a group of Egyptian women threw themselves on top of her to protect her.
She was then escorted by about 20 soldiers to the Four Seasons hotel where she was staying.
“It may be a while” before she returns to the air, says a CBS News source. “Psychologically, obviously, she is suffering from this.”
At the time of the assault, Logan had entered the jam-packed Tahrir Square, where thousands were celebrating the fall of Mubarak.
In the frenzy, she was separated from her crew and security guards.
Witnesses have said the mostly peaceful protests to end Mubarak’s rule had taken a more violent turn after the Egyptian president announced his resignation on Feb. 11, the night Logan was attacked.
As the protests had escalated, Egyptian state media began publishing negative stories about foreign journalists, with many reports alleging that Israeli spies were posing as news crews.
About a week before her attack, Logan and her crew had been among the many journalists rounded up and held on suspicion of being spies.
After she returned to the United States, Logan spent five days at a New York hospital before returning to her suburban home near Washington.