Sheikh Taj el-Din al-Hilali said women who did not wear a hijab (head dress) were like ?uncovered meat?.

But he has now apologised for any offence caused by his comments, The Australian newspaper reports. Leading Muslim women condemned the comments and PM John Howard said the remarks were ?appalling?. ?The idea that women are to blame for rapes is preposterous,? Mr Howard told reporters.

?I unreservedly apologise to any woman who is offended by my comments,? Sheikh Hilali said in a statement yesterday. ?I had only intended to protect women?s honour, something lost in ?The Australian? presentation of my talk.? A spokesman for Sheikh Hilali earlier said the quote had been taken out of context and referred not to sexual assault, but to sexual infidelity.

The sermon was targeted against men and women who engaged in extra-marital sex and did so through alluring types of clothes, he said.

Ramadan sermon

Sheikh Hilali?s critics have previously accused him of praising suicide bombers and claiming the attacks in the United States on 11 September 2001 were ?God?s work against oppressors?. The cleric?s latest comments came in a sermon delivered to some 500 worshippers in Sydney last month.

?If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside... and the cats come and eat it... whose fault is it, the cats? or the uncovered meat?? he asked. The uncovered meat is the problem, he went on to say.

?If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred,? he added. Sheikh Hilali also condemned women who swayed suggestively and wore make-up, implying they attracted sexual assault. ?Then you get a judge without mercy... and gives you 65 years,? he added.

Reporters in Sydney say the comments are seen as particularly insensitive because Sydney was the scene six years ago of a series of gang rapes committed by a group of Lebanese Australians, who received long prison sentences.

High-profile case

Finance Minister Peter Costello called on Muslims to condemn the speech.

?If you have a significant religious leader like this preaching to a flock in a situation where we?ve had gang rapes, in a way that seems to make it justifiable, then people that listen to that kind of comment can get the wrong idea,? he said.

?They can actually think that it?s not as bad as it is.? A number of leading Muslim women have already spoken out against the sermon, describing it as repulsive and offensive.

Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner Pru Goward said the comments could be an incitement to crime. ?Young Muslim men who now rape women can cite this in court, can quote this man... their leader in court,? she told Australian media. She added that the cleric should be deported for inciting rape.

CARTOON ROW

Denmark rejects lawsuit

■ A Danish court has rejected a lawsuit against a paper that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, leading to violent protests worldwide. The City Court in Aarhus said it could not be ruled out that some Muslims had been offended by the 12 drawings printed in Jyllands-Posten. But, it added, there was no reason to assume that the cartoons were meant to denigrate Muslims. The defamation suit had been brought by seven Muslim organisations. After Jyllands-Posten published the 12 cartoons on 30 September 2005, a campaign of protest gradually gathered steam in the Muslim world, erupting into deadly riots in February of this year. Islamic tradition explicitly prohibits images of Muhammad and other major religious figures. At least one of the cartoons also portrayed Muhammad as a terrorist. Death threats were made against the artists. Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen appeared on Arabic TV to apologise for any offence caused. Jyllands-Posten has defended its publication of the cartoons on grounds of freedom of press but it also accepted they had caused offence to many Muslims and apologised.