Corpun file 6694

BBC News Online, London, 9 July 1998

Pakistani policeman says flogging for adulterer was enough

A senior policeman in Pakistan has defended the public flogging of a convicted adulterer after a riot by several thousand people who thought the punishment was too lenient.

The policeman -- a commissioner in North-West Province -- said the sentence of thirty lashes and five years in prison was appropriate.

During the flogging, spectators who thought the convicted man should have been stoned to death threw stones at the police, who responded with a baton charge.

The man had been found guilty by an Islamic court of having a sexual relationship with his mother-in-law.