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Islamic court sets date for verdict in Nigerian stoning case. 28/08/2003. ABC News Online

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Last Update: Thursday, August 28, 2003. 6:17am (AEST)
Islamic court sets date for verdict in Nigerian stoning case

A Nigerian Islamic court says it will pass judgement in the case of Amina Lawal, a single mother who has been sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery, in four weeks time.

Ms Lawal, a 31-year-old village housewife, will learn next month whether her appeal has been successful or whether she could still become the first Nigerian to be stoned since the return of Sharia law.

"The court has heard both sides in this case and hereby adjourns until September 25 for judgement," trial judge Grand Khadi Aminu Ibrahim said, the highest Islamic legal authority in Lawal's home state, Katsina.

Earlier the Katsina Sharia Appeal Court had heard Lawal's defence team argue that her first trial and her first, failed appeal had been unfair.

As Lawal and her baby Wasila left the court to return with family members to her home village of Kurami, her lawyer and friend Hauwa Ibrahim was confident that her life would be saved.

"We are very hopeful that we are going to win," she said after the hearing, noting the judges had extended the court's normal sitting hours to allow Lawal's appeal hearing to finish in good time.

Chief prosecutor Nurulhuda Mahmud appeared to be preparing the ground for his possible defeat at next month's hearing.

"Our prayer to this court is to accept our explanation ... and order that the sentence be upheld. However, Sharia is not bent on passing death sentences," he said after the hearing.

"If this court finds any doubt in the proceedings that should be enough to save Amina from execution."

Under Sharia, a person who has sex outside of marriage can be found guilty of adultery, and thus face death.

Last year Lawal was denounced by fellow villagers in the Katsina farming community of Kurami after she gave birth to Wasila more than two years after splitting from her husband.

She was convicted in March last year and lost her first appeal in August, instantly becoming an international cause celebre.

Her photo made front pages worldwide and her case inspired email campaigns, candle-lit vigils and protests against the alleged brutality of what many regard as Sharia's archaic and harsh punishments.

But defence counsel Aliyu Musa Yawuri has opted to challenge her conviction under the terms of Sharia, not to fight the controversial legal system itself.

He argued that the village court which convicted her had not properly explained the offence nor its consequences before her alleged confession.

He also said the baby had been conceived before Sharia law formally came into force in Katsina State.

Lawal gave birth on January 6 of last year, more than two years after her divorce but only six-and-a-half months after Katsina formally reinstituted Sharia.

The prosecutor contested this argument, saying that although Sharia was incorporated into state law on June 20, 2002, an interim declaration of the law had been made in August 2000.

The defence also argued that, under Islamic law, the pregnancy could have been the result of a so-called "sleeping embryo".

"Amina gave birth within two years of divorce, so the presumption is that the child belongs to her former husband," Mr Yawuri said, arguing that Sharia holds that an embryo can lie dormant for up to five years.

Again, Mr Nurulhuda rejected the argument, saying that it was up to Lawal to prove the sleeping embryo claim, which had not been part of her defence when she had confessed below a lower court.

Around 35 armed police were deployed around the building, but there was no sign of disturbances outside.

Amina sat impassively through most of the proceedings cradling baby Wasila, but she appeared close to tears when press photographers crowded in, and family members said the young Muslim woman was under severe stress.

"Amina is deeply worried - sometimes she can't even eat. She's anxious to see the end of this case so that she can marry and have a normal life," the defendant's uncle, 50-year-old farmer Magaji Liman said.

Lawal's case has become an embarrassment for Nigeria's secular federal government and for President Olusegun Obasanjo, who has tried to reassure rights activists without offending the Muslims who make up 50 per cent of the citizens of Africa's most populous nation.

No one has yet been stoned to death since 12 mainly Muslim northern states seized upon the end of military rule in 1999 to begin invoking Islamic law for the first time since the west African country won independence in 1960.

-- AFP


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