A personal account from one of Muammar  Gaddafi’s former sex slaves published in the New York Post today sheds even more light on the strange and terrifying lifestyle of Libya’s  former dictator.

Soraya was just 15 years old in April 2004  when she was handpicked by Gaddafi to become one of the many sex slaves in his  harem.

French journalist Annick Cojean details  Soraya’s life as a sex slave in a new book titled: ‘Gaddafi’s Harem: The Story  of a Young Woman and the Abuses of Power in Libya’ due out this September from  Grove Press.

Tapped: Soraya was just 15 years old when she met the  Gaddafi on a visit to her school, and he hand-picked her to be a sex slave in  his harem

Soraya first met Gaddafi when the dictator  made a visit to her school and she was chosen to present him with a bouquet.

Gaddafi’s Harem: The new book by French journalist  Annick Cojean gives Soraya’s full account of the nightmare of being Gaddafi’s  sex slave

‘You can’t imagine the excitement,’ she said.  ‘To see Gaddafi in person…His face had been known to me since I was born.’

Their first exchange was innocent. Her heart  raced as she handed Gaddafi the flowers, knelt and kissed his hand. He tapped  her head and then she left. She said she felt like she was on a  cloud.

But that tap was more meaningful than Soraya  could possibly comprehend. That tap meant that Gaddafi had chosen her to be his  sex slave.

The following day three members of his  Amazonian guard – an all-female group – arrived at her mother’s upscale salon  and said that Gaddafi wanted to see Soraya.

Her mother reluctantly agreed, knowing she  didn’t have a choice.

Soraya was whisked away in a speeding SUV to  a remote outpost where she was taken into a tent to meet the dictator. He didn’t  acknowledge her as he surfed the channels on his TV, but commanded the female  guards to ‘get her ready.’

This included shaving her down, administering  a blood test, measuring her for clothes, and changing her into a G-string and  white slip.

When she was ready, Soraya was escorted into  Gaddafi’s bedroom where he was waiting naked on the bed.

‘Turn around you whore!’ Gaddafi yelled at  the young girl. ‘Whore’ would be the only name Soraya was ever called by the  dictator. Then he yanked her hair and  made her look into his eyes.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ he said. ‘I am your Papa – that’s what you’ll call me, isn’t it? But I am your brother as well, and soon I’ll be your lover. I’ll be all of that to you. Because you’re going to stay here and be with me forever. ‘

‘I am your Papa’: Gaddafi told Soraya he would be  father, brother AND lover to the 15-year-old girl

Soraya was confused. She was told that after  she met with the dictator that she could go home. Being so young, she didn’t  quite understand what the dictator wanted with her.

After that Soraya was held captive as a sex  slave until Gaddafi’s demise.  Along with his many other slaves, she lived  in a windowless basement room stuffy with mold and sweat. Their single role in  life was to fulfill Gaddafi’s sexual appetite, as he would have sex at least  four times a day and it had to be with different women each time.

This came as quite a shock to Soraya who,  like many other Libyans, thought of Gadaffi as a feminist in many ways.

He started the Amazonian Guard, the  all-female regiment that protected him. He wrote ‘The Green Book’ which  advocated for women’s rights and constantly criticized the West for their  treatment of women.

Secret sex slaves: Gaddafi was thought of as a feminist  in Libya for some time because he started the all-female Amazonian guard, but  many of them were actually kept as sex slaves

Feminist: One female member of his vice squad told the  AP in 2011 that Gaddafi ‘opened opportunities for women to advance’

One member of his female vice squad told the  Associated Press in 2011 that  Gaddafi opened opportunities for women to  advance. ‘That’s why we cling to him; that’s why we love him. He gave us  complete freedom as a woman to enter the police force, work as engineers,  pilots, judges, lawyers. Anything.’

But the truth was that many of Gaddafi’s own  Amazonian guard were used as sex slaves as well. He scoped out other potential  slaves at weddings, schools and political summits. There was even a secret  apartment at the University of Tripoli he used to rape students.

And his treatment of Soraya was far from  feminist. After her first time with the dictator, she bled for 36 hours straight  after. In a report published as the revolution, Gaddafi’s chef told The Times of  India that many of his sex slaves suffered such serious injuries from  intercourse that ‘they went immediately from his bedroom to the  hospital.’

Soraya hated the way he ate garlic cloves for  breakfast, chain-smoked, got drunk off of Johnnie Walker Black and was  constantly high on cocaine.

‘He was repulsive and he was the president of  my country,’ Soraya said.

But some women, especially foreigners,  willingly  engaged with Gaddafi. She  was always surprised to see visiting women head to Gadaffi’s bedroom  immaculately dressed carrying designer purses, and then emerge later with their  lipstick smudged and hair undone.

His sex acts with her were gruesome. After  years of sex slavery, she says Gaddafi completely deformed her body.

‘Because they had been pushed, crushed and  bitten, my breasts were drooping and very painful,’ she said. ‘[I] had the chest  of an old lady.’

One time he urinated on her and another time  he raped her right after having sex with a slave infected with hepatitis.

In one instance she was brought into his  bedroom while he was having sex with a young man while another man dressed like  a woman was forced to dance. After he was finished he moved onto Soraya.

Outside of Libya no one really seemed to  understand just how crazy the dictator was. Soraya recalls a visit from Tony  Blair. Blair exited Gaddafi’s tent in a great mood and yelled   ‘Hi,  girls!’ to the people congregated outside, not knowing they were slaves.

Hi, girls! Former British PM Tony Blair seemed clueless  of the sex atrocities committed by Gaddafi when he visited the country in 2007

Eventually Soraya gained some freedoms, like  the ability to use a cellphone or take a brief trip home. Many of the sex slaves  used these liberties as a way to escape, but most were eventually found and  brought back.

Years of containment made Soraya relish the  freedoms, so she never dared try to leave.

‘The few hours outside the compound gave me  such a boost that I never asked any questions,’ Soraya said. ‘I wasn’t even  thinking of escaping anymore. I was a long-forgotten girl without any sort of  future.’

Then Tripoli fell in August 2011, and two  months later Gaddafi was killed. The world was opened up to the atrocities  Gaddafi had committed, and the weird lifestyle he kept. When revolutionaries  took his palace they found tons of porn, a life-size poster of Jake Gyllenhaal  and a photo album of pictures of Condoleezza Rice whom he called ‘my darling  black African woman.’ They also found a labyrinth of underground tunnels where  Soraya and other slaves were locked away.

Freedom: Tripoli fell in August 2011, and two months  later Gaddafi was killed. Now Soraya is free but still feels the aftershocks of  her life as a sex slave

Now Soraya lives in Tripoli, smoking three  packs a day in her apartment, completely friendless and wondering if anyone will  ever acknowledge what happened to her and others like her.

‘I didn’t dream it!’ she told Cojean. ‘You  believe me, don’t you?’

The International Criminal Court issued a  warrant for Gaddafi four months  before he died, but no one would step up  to testify to rape.

Read more: DailyMail