Pakistan's Supreme Court ordered a probe into an alleged...

Pakistan's Supreme Court ordered a probe into an alleged deal by which four men on death row won freedom in exchange for cash and allowing their victims' clan to marry eight young women.
The country's top court said in a statement the deal arranged by a village jury, or panchayat, in the central province of Punjab had violated the law and "norms of the civilised world".
It asked the police to investigate the deal, under which one 18-year-old girl was said to have been ordered to marry an 80-year-old man.
It was the second time in less than a month that the Supreme Court had intervened in a case involving the alleged violation of women's rights in the populous Punjab province.
Earlier in July it ordered a similar probe after media reported the gang-rape of a 30-year-old woman by four men on the orders of a panchayat in another Punjab village.
In the latest incident in Abbakhel, the family of two murdered men demanded 12 million rupees ($200,000) and 20 young women to be married into their clan in exchange for a pardon, the respected English-language daily Dawn reported.
But the village council mediated a compromise under which the victims' family agreed to take eight unmarried young women and eight million rupees.
The role of traditional village panchayats in Pakistan has come under close scrutiny following the gang-rape of 30-year-old Mukhtaran Mai to avenge the alleged affair of her brother with a girl from a more powerful tribe.
On the Supreme Court's orders, police arrested four alleged rapists and eight panchayat jurors, all of whom are now awaiting trial by a special Anti-Terrorism Court.
That incident, on June 22, sparked national and international controversy and highlighted the uneasy co-existence of traditional law alongside Islamic and civil law.