WASHINGTON (AFP) — The White House on Monday denounced in unusually harsh terms a Saudi sentence against a woman who was gang-raped and openly hoped that the verdict would change upon appeal.
"I don't think it matters if you're a female or a male. I think that the situation is very discouraging and outrageous," spokeswoman Dana Perino said when asked about the woman's sentence of six months in jail and 200 lashes.
"There is an appeals process, and we hope that the verdict changes. It is certainly not consistent with the judicial reforms that the Saudis have said that they would undertake," she said.
The Saudi justice ministry, looking to fend off mounting international criticism over the sentence, said Saturday that the woman had confessed to adultery.
Despite being sexually assaulted by seven men who kidnapped her with a male companion at knife-point, the unidentified 19 year-old woman was sentenced in November 2006 to 90 lashes.
The judge sentenced her for being in a car with a man who was not her relative, a taboo in the conservative Muslim kingdom which imposes strict segregation of the sexes.
But her story hit international headlines last week when her sentence was increased to six months in jail and 200 lashes after she spoke to the media.
The justice ministry said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency that the woman had owned up to having an extramarital affair with the man in the car.
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