ISLAMABAD, March 27 (AFP) - The victim of high-profile Pakistani gang rape case has filed an appeal in the Supreme Court against the acquittals of five men involved in the alleged assault, court officials said Sunday.

"I have filed the appeal on behalf of Mukhtiar Mai," lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan told AFP.

"A date for hearing the appeal is to be fixed by the court," Ahsan said adding that the proceedings may start in a couple of weeks.

Mai was raped for more than an hour on the orders of a tribal council at Meerwala town in Punjab province in June 2002 as punishment for her brother's alleged affair with a woman of a powerful rival clan.

Six men were sentenced to death in August 2002 for the assault. But a Lahore High Court acquitted five of them on appeal on March 3, while the sixth had his punishment commuted to life imprisonment.

The decision shocked the country and sparked international outrage.

The victim of the infamous rape urged President Pervez Musharraf to intervene in the case, saying that her life was in danger if the accused were allowed to move freely.

Mai, 33, who has become a rights campaigner since the 2002 attack, also met Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz who "assured Mukhtiar Mai that justice will prevail and her legal rights will be protected under the law," officials said.

The accused who allegedly assaulted her were re-arrested on the orders of the president and prime minister, said Kashmala Tariq, chairwoman of Pakistan's parliamentary commission for human rights.

Police said the government had also banned the men from leaving the country.

Women in Pakistan and other parts of South Asia are often subject to brutal "honour punishments", from acid-burning to rape and murder, paying for the alleged crimes of relatives.