Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has pardoned a woman who was gang-raped, and then sentenced to prison and 200 lashes in a case that sparked international outcry, including rare criticism from the United States, the kingdom's top ally.

The woman was convicted of violating Saudi Arabia's strict Islamic laws against mixing of the sexes because she was alone in a car with a man she is not related or married to, when seven men attacked them and raped both in 2006.

The sentence shocked many in the West. In unusually strong criticism of a close ally, U.S. President George W. Bush said that if such a case occurred to one of his daughters he would be "angry at those who committed the crime. And I'd be angry at a state that didn't support the victim."