Clinton attacks Bush over jailed Saudi rape victim

Hillary Rodham Clinton waded into the deepening international controversy triggered by the sentencing of a rape victim to 200 lashes in Saudi Arabia. The Democratic presidential hopeful called the punishment an "outrage" yesterday and rebuked President George Bush for failing to confront Saudi officials over the case.

"The Bush administration has refused to condemn the sentence and said it will not protest an internal Saudi decision," Mrs Clinton said.

"I urge President Bush to call on King Abdullah to cancel the ruling and drop all charges against this woman."

Mrs Clinton made her remarks as disgust over the sentencing of the victim continued to spread. The 19-year-old, who has not been named, was travelling in a car with a male friend last October when the car was attacked by a gang of seven men who raped both of them. She has become known as the "Qatif girl", a reference to the largely Shia town where she lives.

Four of the attackers were convicted of kidnapping but the court also sentenced the rape victim and her friend to receive 90 lashes each for the crime of "illegal mingling".

Last week, the court increased the woman's sentence to 200 lashes and six months in jail. It also banned her lawyer from the courtroom and took away his licence. The Saudi justice ministry said the sentence was justified because the woman was in a car with an unrelated man.

But the verdict has been condemned by human rights groups and triggered debate inside the deeply conservative kingdom.

For the first time, meanwhile, the husband of the victim appealed to the international media to increase pressure on the Saudi government to have the sentence reversed.

That a woman who has been raped should deserve any kind of punishment at all is hard for most in the West even to grasp. Critics of Saudi society argue that the case highlights the extent to which women in the country, who are not allowed to drive, vote or even testify in most courts, are denied normal rights.

There has so far been little response from the US, which counts Saudi Arabia and its leader, King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz, as a key strategic ally in the region. On Tuesday, a State Department spokesman said only that it had aroused official "astonishment" in Washington.

The husband told CNN that his wife was "like a crushed human being" following the court ruling and was suffering from depression as well as fragile health. He suggested that one of the three judges had developed a personal vendetta against her as the case went forward.

"From the outset, my wife was dealt with as a guilty person who committed a crime," he added. "She was not given any chance to prove her innocence or describe how she was a victim of multiple brutal rapes."

He took care, however, to say that the case was neither reflective of how Saudi law normally works or of wider attitudes in his country towards women. "If this sentence is based on the law then I would've welcomed it," he said. "But it is harsh and the Saudi society I know and belong to is more sympathetic than that. I do not expect such harshness from Saudis, but rather compassion and support of the victim and her rights."

Saying that the one judge has shown meanness towards his wife from the beginning, he recalled that, "even when he pronounced the sentence he said to her, 'You were involved in a suspicious relationship and you deserve 200 lashes'."