Pak rapists face retrial

Pakistan's Supreme Court overturned the acquittals of 13 suspects in the gang rape of a village woman whose plight drew international attention and ordered them re-arrested Tuesday, court officials and a lawyer in the case said.

The ruling came a day after the victim, Mukhtar Mai, appealed the acquittals in a dramatic appearance at the court.

"I am happy and I hope those who humiliated me will be punished," Mai told reporters after hearing the Supreme Court's verdict, which cast aside a series of conflicting rulings by several lower courts.

Mai was raped in June 2002 on orders from a council of village elders, allegedly in retaliation for her 13-year-old brother's illicit affair with a woman from a higher-caste family. The case drew international headlines, highlighting the appalling treatment of women in some parts of this deeply conservative country.

A trial court in 2002 sentenced six men to death and acquitted eight others. But in March of this year, the High Court in Punjab province, where Mai's home village is located, acquitted five of the men and reduced the death sentence of the sixth man to life in prison.

The Supreme Court in its ruling Tuesday suspended the High Court decision. It said it would hear appeals from both Mai and the suspects at a later date, said Malik Salim, a lawyer for one of the suspects.

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