ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, April 21 (UPI) -- Pakistan's highest court Thursday upheld the acquittal of five of six men accused in a so-called honor-revenge gang rape of a woman in a rural village.
A three-judge panel of the Supreme Court of Pakistan upheld a decision by the Lahore High Court acquitting five of the men accused in the rape of Mukhtar Mai of rural Meerwala, citing lack of evidence. The sixth man is to complete a life sentence.
Mukhtar, now 40, was allegedly gang-raped in 2002 on the orders of the tribal council of the richer and more powerful Mastoi Baloch clan as a punishment for her younger brother's alleged illicit relations with a woman from that tribe. Mukhtar and her brother are part of the Tatla clan.
Later investigations revealed the brother, 12 at the time, had been molested by three Mastoi tribesmen, and the accusation against him had been a coverup, The New York Times reported.
"I am deeply upset by the decision of the Supreme Court," Mukhtar told the Times. "Now I don't have confidence in any court. But the court of Allah is bigger than any worldly court."
Mukhtar said the Supreme Court would "be responsible if something happens to me or my family."
Women's rights activists called the court's decision a reflection of the country's flawed criminal justice system.
"We are absolutely devastated," activist Farzana Bari told the Times. "This is a black day for all of us."
By custom, rural women are expected to commit suicide after "honor-revenge" gang rapes. Instead, Mukhtar spoke up and emerged as a symbol of the voiceless and oppressed women in Pakistan.
A local antiterrorism court sentenced the six defendants to death, but the Lahore High Court acquitted five of them in March 2005 and commuted the sixth man's sentence to life imprisonment.
