Gays in Iraq terrorized by threats, rape, murder
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Kamal was just 16 when gunmen snatched him off the streets of Baghdad, stuffed him in the trunk of a car and whisked him away to a house. But the real terror was about to begin.
The men realized he was gay, Kamal said, when he took his shirt off and they saw his chest was shaved.
"They told me to take off my clothes to rape me or they would kill me immediately. This moment was the worst moment in my life," he told CNN, weeping as he spoke of the 2005 ordeal.
"I was watching them taking off their clothes, preparing to rape me. I did not know what to do, so I started shouting loudly, 'Please do not do that! I will ask my family to give you whatever you want.'" Video Watch the tormented life of gays in Iraq »
His pleas went unheeded. "The other two kidnappers took off my clothes by force and, at that time, I saw them as three dirty animals trying to tear my body apart."
