Now they are accusing her of having an affair -- based upon the claims of the rapists.

Under fire for its treatment of a rape victim, the Saudi Arabian government on Saturday said that the woman had an "illegitimate relationship" with a man who was not her husband, and that both "exposed themselves to this heinous crime."

In a statement, the kingdom's Ministry of Justice said it was "forced ... to clarify the role of the woman and the man who was accompanying her in this case and its circumstances" because of what it claimed were false media reports.

The 19-year-old woman was initially sentenced to 90 lashes for meeting with the man -- described by her attorney as a former friend from whom she was retrieving a photograph.

The seven attackers, who abducted the pair and raped her, received sentences ranging from 10 months to five years in jail.

When the woman appealed her sentence, a Saudi court more than doubled it. The Qatif General Court also increased the sentence for the rapists, to two to nine years in prison.

The case has drawn international attention, provoked outrage in the West and cast light on the treatment of women under Saudi Arabia's strict Islamic law.

Now the Saudis initially said that the sentence was increased because the woman dared to complain about being punished for being raped. now they are claiming something else entirely.

The government statement said that according to the woman's signed confession, she called a man on her cell phone and "asked to be with him alone, illegally." The two met at a marketplace, then rode in the man's car to "a dark area of the beach, and stayed there for some time," the ministry said.

The group of attackers "saw her in a compromising situation, her clothes on the ground," the statement said. "The men at this point assaulted her and the man with her."

Now this could be as little as having removed her abaya, that degrading head-to-toe covering that Saudi law uses to dehumanize women. You know, since Saudi law presumes that men are so incapable of controlling themselves in a civilized manner that an exposed wrist -- much less an exposed face -- can drive them into a rape-inducing frenzy. And in such cases, the rape is clearly the fault of the woman, who victimized the men by daring to be uncovered.

I've got a great idea. Since Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal will be in Annapolis this week, maybe it is time for outraged Americans to seize him and administer to him the same 200 lashes the barbaric government he represents intends to mete out to a rape victim. You know, just to send the jumped-up desert bandits who rule the kingdom a message about how strongly the civilized world objects to such sharia-based despotism.

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