The trial of 14 men charged over the gang-rape of a Pakistani woman opened in an anti-terrorism court today, as prosecutors vowed to press for the death penalty.
Four men are charged with raping Ms Mukhtaran Bibi on June 22nd and 10 members of the tribal council in the Punjab provincial village of Meerwala are charged with ordering it, as punishment for an affair her younger brother was accused of.
The sensational case has provoked shame and outrage across Pakistan, with the Supreme Court branding it a heinous crime and the worst violation of human rights in 21st century Pakistan.
Rape and gang-rape are common in this Islamic republic of 145 million but rights groups say this is the first known case of a council ordering a gang rape as a punishment.
Chief public prosecutor Asghar Gill told reporters that he would call for the death penalty.
"We will press for the maximum punishment which is the death sentence," he told reporters outside the court in Dera Ghazi Khan.
Gill said the accused were liable for death on two counts - for stripping a woman naked in full public view, and for rape. Two doctors testified for the prosecution, including a female doctor who examined Ms Bibi and a doctor who examined the accused rapists.
Shahida Safdar told the court that three swab tests had proved that Ms Bibi was raped by more than one person.
Defence counsel Malik Mohammad Salim rejected the doctor's testimony, saying the tests were unreliable because they were conducted eight days after the alleged rape.
A second doctor, Fazal Hussain, told the court that his tests had proven the accused rapists were capable of committing the crime.
The Supreme Court has ordered the anti-terrorism court, which has jurisdiction also to try "heinous" crimes, to conclude the trial within three weeks.
The hearing was adjourned until Monday.
AFP