Saudi Rape Victim 'Crushed Human Being,' Husband Says

The husband of the Saudi gang-rape victim sentenced to 200 lashes and 6 months in jail blamed one judge's vendetta—and not the Saudi judicial system itself—for her treatment "as a guilty person who committed a crime." He told CNN his wife has been a severely depressed, ill, "crushed human being" since the attack in 2006, when they were engaged. She's given up her education, and is too fragile to speak publicly.

The 24-year-old husband said her trial was a spectacle; the attackers were allowed to make offensive gestures and threaten his wife. "She was not given any chance to prove her innocence or describe how she was a victim of multiple brutal rapes." One judge, he said, was harsh throughout the case; he was hostile to, and finally dismissed, her lawyer, "who's a known human rights activist."  (More Saudi Arabia stories.)