Six men convicted over the gang-rape of a Pakistani woman were on death row on Monday, as prosecution lawyers planned appeals against the acquittal of eight other men and the defence planned appeals against the convictions.
Four Mastoi tribesmen were convicted of raping Mukhtia Mai (30) while the chief juror and arbitrator of an informal village council were convicted of abetting the rape on June 22 in the central Punjab village of Meerwala, 90 kilometres southwest of here.
After a month-long trial the verdict was delivered in the early hours of Sunday morning by judge Zulfikar Ali Malik in a closed midnight session of the anti-terrorism court in Dera Ghazi Khan, a district capital of Punjab province.
Eight other members of the village council were acquitted of charges of ordering the rape of Mai to atone for her younger brother’s alleged affair with a sister of one of the rapists.
Authorities at the Dera Ghazi Khan jail said they transferred the six condemned men to death row and released the eight acquitted men on Sunday.
Chief defence lawyer Malik Saleem said he would file an appeal with the Lahore High Court’s Multan Bench on September 9.
”I am optimistic that all my clients will be acquitted because there was no eyewitness to the gang-rape and the court relied merely on the statement of Mukhtia Mai, who twisted her statements three times,” Saleem told AFP by telephone.
The lawyer responded to the announcement of the verdict early on Sunday by accusing the court of caving in to government pressure for a harsh punishment in the high-profile case.
”This judgment has been delivered under duress. The judge was clearly under pressure from the media, the government and the Supreme Court,” he fumed.
Prosecutor Khalid Joiya told journalists here that he would appeal against the acquittals of the eight other tribal council members.
Mai’s father Ghulam Fareed called the verdict ”historical.”
?This was an historical judgement which has broken the back of the Mastoi tribe, a clan of tyrants,” he told journalists at his home in Meerwala.
”In the past no one had dared register any case against them and pursue the case against them.”
Mai and her family were expected to be relocated to a new home after receiving repeated threats from Mastoi tribesmen that they would kill male family members and throw acid on her female relatives in the event of a guilty verdict.
”They are threatening that if their people are hanged, then they will kill two of (my clan’s) tribesmen for each man hanged,” she said at the weekend.
She told AFP at her home on Sunday that the verdict had boosted her religious faith.
”I have been praying to Allah that he would grant me justice, so I feel elated. I feel my sacrifice has not been wasted,” she said.
”What I was subjected to should never happen to anybody.” – Sapa-AFP