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Woman who reported rape gets 90 lashes

A Saudi judge gives the woman a harsher punishment than one of the alleged rapists.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published November 22, 2006

AL-AWWAMIYA, Saudi Arabia - When the teenager went to the police a few months ago to report she was gang-raped by seven men, she never imagined the judge would punish her - and that she would be sentenced to more lashes than one of her alleged rapists received.

The story of the Girl of Qatif, as the 19-year-old has been called by the media here, has triggered a rare debate about Saudi Arabia's legal system, in which judges have wide discretion in punishing a criminal, rules of evidence are shaky and sometimes no defense lawyers are present.

The result, critics say, are sentences left to the whim of judges. These include one in which a group of men got heavier sentences for harassing women than the men in the Girl of Qatif rape case or three men who were convicted of raping a boy. In another, a woman was ordered to divorce her husband against her will based on a demand by her relatives.

In the case of the Girl of Qatif, she was sentenced to 90 lashes for being alone in a car with a man to whom she was not married - a crime in this country - at the time she was attacked.

An Associated Press reporter met the 19-year-old in a face-to-face interview in her village of Awwamiya on the outskirts of the eastern city of Qatif. The AP does not identify rape victims unless they ask to be named.

On the night of the attack, she said, she had left home to retrieve her picture from a male high school student she used to know. She had just been married and did not want him to keep her picture.

While the woman was in the car with the student, she said, two men got into the vehicle and drove the couple to a secluded area where the two were separated. She said she was raped by seven men, three of whom also allegedly raped her friend.

In a trial that ended in November - in which the prosecutor asked for the death penalty for the seven men - four of the men received between one and five years in prison plus 80 to 1,000 lashes, the woman said. Three others are awaiting sentencing.

"The big shock came when the judge sentenced me and the man to 90 lashes each," the woman said.

The sentences have yet to be carried out, but the punishments have caused an uproar.

In a column in Al-Watan newspaper, Fatima al-Faqeeh wrote: "Because I could make no sense (of the sentence) and became in dire need of patience, I muttered after I read the verdict against the Girl of Qatif: 'My heart is with you.' "

Judges in the case referred the AP to the Justice Ministry when asked about the sentencing. The ministry, in a statement Tuesday, said rape could not be proved.

[Last modified November 22, 2006, 01:08:13]