RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Saudi Arabia’s king waived a flogging sentence given to a female journalist charged for involvement in a risque TV show, the second such pardoning of such a high-profile case by the monarch in recent years.

King Abdullah’s decision to waive 22-year-old journalist Rozanna al-Yami’s sentence of 60 lashes imposed by a judge in Jiddah follows intense international media attention.

The journalist was charged with helping coordinate a talk show on a Lebanese channel that featured a Saudi man describing what appeared to be his active sex life. Though the charges against her were dropped, the judge ordered the flogging as a “deterrent,’’ Yami said.

In November 2007, the king waived a flogging sentence of 90 lashes against a rape victim for being alone in a car with an unrelated man shortly before the two were attacked. That case also evoked international outrage over the Saudi judiciary.

Yesterday, Information Ministry spokesman Abdul-Rahman al-Hazza said the king waived the sentence and ordered that Yami’s case and that of another journalist - a pregnant woman also accused of involvement in the program - be referred to a committee in the ministry.

Hazza said the king made his decision after he was briefed by the information minister.

Yami worked as a coordinator for the program but has denied involvement in the sex-related episode.

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