Govt to appeal flogging of rape victim

Maldives president says ‘saddened’ Taleban bomb schools in Pak

MALE, Feb 28, (AFP): The Maldivian government said Thursday it would seek to overturn a court decision to publicly flog a 15year-old rape victim convicted of having premarital sex.

The unidentified girl was charged after police investigating a complaint that she was raped by her step-father found that she had also been having consensual sex with another man.

A spokesman for President Mohamed Waheed said he was shocked by the sentence handed down by a juvenile court, meaning the teenager would receive 100 lashes when she reaches 18.

“The president has asked the attorney general to appeal against the lower court decision,” spokesman Abbas Adil Riza told AFP. “The girl will also be provided with the necessary legal counsel and we hope the case will be concluded in about a month.”

Waheed said on his Facebook page that he was “saddened” by the sentence, which was decried by rights groups.

Premarital sex is illegal in the popular honeymoon destination, which observes elements of Islamic Sharia law as well as English common law.

The child’s stepfather faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted of rape and on a murder charge, after he allegedly killed a baby which resulted from his alleged rape of his stepdaughter. PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Feb 28, (AFP): Suspected Taleban militants bombed four boys’ schools in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal belt, officials said, in the Islamists’ latest attack on government educational institutions.

No one was injured in the pre-dawn blasts in Mohmand tribal district, where officials said Taleban attacks have now destroyed more than 100 schools.

“Militants from (Tehreek-e-Taleban Mohmand) blew up the buildings of four schools at around 2:30 am (2130 GMT),” an intelligence official in Mohmand told AFP.

TTM