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Nigerian court postpones ruling on stoning

Amina Lawal and her 20-month-old child, Wasila, are chased by reporters as they arrive at the Katsina State Judiciary Sharia Court of Appeal Headquarters in Katsina, Nigeria, on Wednesday. Lawal has been found guilty of adultery, as evidenced by the existence of Wasila, and sentenced to death by stoning. PHOTO: AFP

A court in northern Nigeria said on Wednesday it would issue a judgment next month in the appeal of a woman sentenced to death by stoning for having a child out of wedlock.

Amina Lawal, 31, was convicted in March 2002 for having had a baby 10 months after a divorce, taken by prosecutors as proof that she had had extramarital sex.

A judge ordered that Lawal's stoning should not be carried out until she had weaned her baby, which may not be until next year according to sharia law.

The case caused international outrage, including calls for a boycott of the Miss World beauty pageant, which was due to have been held in Nigeria last year.

On Wednesday, the court said it would issue a judgment on her appeal on Sept. 25.

Lawal's uncle Magaji Liman told reporters: "All of us are in great distress... She cannot eat, I have to even persuade her to eat. She is very anxious to see the end of this saga, so she can just remarry and have a good life."

Lawal's first attempt at an appeal was denied last August.

Her case is a critical test for Nigeria's system of Islamic or sharia law which sparked riots when it was extended from civil law to criminal law in 12 northern states three years ago.

Thousands died in the violence, which pitted Christians from mainly southern ethnic groups against Muslim northerners.

With Lawal sitting alone on a stone bench at the front of the court, her 20-month-old baby strapped to her back, her lawyer, Aliyu Musa Yawuri, argued her second appeal.

Yawuri said that under Islamic law there is a presumption a woman could carry a "sleeping embryo for a period of five years commencing from the date of divorce."

"Amina had been divorced for about 10 months when she delivered her child, so the courts ought to have applied that law in her favor," he said.

Wearing traditional British-style barrister's wig, Yawuri presented his case in northern Nigeria's Hausa language before five judges wearing black-and-gold robes.

Yawuri also said Lawal had withdrawn a confession of guilt made in March last year. In the first appeal, her request to withdraw the confession was rejected.

The prosecution argued the confession could only be withdrawn if an alternative explanation for her pregnancy was submitted, which it said had not been done.

Lawal's lawyers said if the appeal fails they would take the case to a federal court in Kaduna, the last stage before going to Nigeria's Supreme Court.

So far, none of the sharia criminal sentences have reached as far as the federal level.

Pierre Brun of Avocats sans Frontieres (Lawyers without Borders), who is advising the defense lawyers, said he was pleased with the procedure in the court room, adding everyone was given time to put their arguments.

"Everything was fairly done. We're positive we should have an acquittal on the 25th, but if not, we are already preparing for an appeal before the federal court of appeal," he said.

Abu Umar, a prosecution lawyer representing Katsina state, said if the appeals failed, Lawal could be executed by means other than stoning.

"It can be through any means that take her life," Umar said. "It can be an execution, which could be by hanging."

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