Court hands down six death sentences over woman’s rape

A Pakistani woman gang-raped by four men on the orders of a traditional village jury said she was satisfied with the six death sentences handed down for the crime yesterday.

A special anti-terrorism court in the town of Dera Ghazi Khan in Punjab province sentenced four rapists and two jurors early yesterday for the June 22 attack on 30-year-old divorcee Mukhtaran Mai.

Eight other men who had sat on the jury that authorised the crime were released.

Ms Mai, who says her family has received death threats, was not in court when the judge announced the decision shortly after midnight. She was given the news at dawn by a relative in her home village Meerawali, the scene the attack.

“God has provided justice to me,” she said by telephone. “If courts start giving decisions like this, I am sure rapes will be reduced, if not stopped totally. I am satisfied with the decision.”

Ms Mai was raped by four men after approaching a traditional jury, or panchayat, to settle a dispute with the more powerful Mastoi clan.

Ms Mai said she went to the jury after her 12-year-old brother Abdul Shakoor was kidnapped and sodomised by members of the Mastoi family as a punishment for having an illicit affair with one of their female relatives.

The jury ruled that to save Mastoi honour, Shakoor should marry the woman with whom he was linked while Ms Mai was to be given away in marriage to a Mastoi man.

When she rejected the decision, she was gang raped and made to walk home nearly naked in front of hundreds of people.

Police sent extra armed men to Meerawali and cordoned off Ms Mai’s house to prevent any revenge attack.

Mastoi family members said police had detained eight of their men as a precaution, but no independent confirmation was available.

On Friday, Ms Mai said she and her family had been threatened with revenge if the men were convicted. She asked for state help to move to a safer place.

Lawyers for the convicted men have said they will appeal. Execution in Pakistan is by hanging. Generally this is done only after a lengthy appeals process, but the anti-terrorism law under which the case was tried requires appeals to be filed within seven days.