King pardons rape victim
Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah pardoned the victim of a gang rape whose sentencing to 200 lashes and six months in prison caused an international outcry.
The 19-year-old woman was in a car with a male companion when they were abducted and raped in an attack by seven men last year. A court sentenced the woman for being alone with an unrelated man. The rapists got jail terms of up to nine years.
The king said, according to excerpts, that the two “had suffered a level of torture and distress that was by itself enough to discipline them.”
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