Pak court frees rapist after deal to marry victim

A Pakistan court freed a rapist after he married his victim in a settlement brokered by a council of elders in the northwest of the country, his lawyer said yesterday.

The decision has outraged rights activists, who say it legitimises sexual violence against women in a country where a majority of rape goes unreported.

Dawlat Khan, 25, was sentenced in May to life imprisonment by a lower court in Buner district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province for raping a deaf woman. He was released from prison on Monday after the Peshawar High Court accepted an out-of-court settlement agreed by the rape survivor's family.

Khan was arrested after his unmarried victim delivered a baby earlier this year, and a paternity test proved he was the child's biological father.

Rape is notoriously difficult to prosecute in Pakistan, where women are often treated as second-class citizens.

In Pakistan, the conviction rate of rape cases that go to trial is lower than three percent.

"This is effectively the court's approval of rape and facilitation of rapists and rape mentality," Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir, a lawyer and human rights activist, said of the Peshawar court decision.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said it was "appalled" by the ruling.