Islamic court frees woman from death by stoning

An Islamic court of appeal in Nigeria’s northern Sokoto State freed on Monday a 35-year-old woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery. Safiya Huseini Tunga-Tudu, who has been at the center of the controversial case that has drawn international outrage from rights advocates and raised religious tension in Nigeria, was acquitted by the Sharia Court of Appeal in the city of Sokoto on procedural grounds. "The first court … did not follow appropriate procedure," Mohammed Tambari-Uthman, presiding over a four-man panel of judges, said while delivering judgment. Other grounds for the acquittal include police failure to provide all the information required in the case and the fact that the alleged offence was committed before the Sharia legal code was instituted in the state. The decision freeing Tunga-Tudu provides temporary relief from the mounting tension between the federal government of President Olusegun Obasanjo and the governors of the 12 northern states that have adopted the strict Islamic or Sharia legal code over the past two years. Punishments prescribed under the system include stoning to death for adultery, amputation of limbs for stealing and public flogging for drinking of alcohol or premarital sex. Last week Minister of Justice and Attorney General Kanu Agabi told the states applying Sharia to modify the code to conform with the constitution, describing current applications as unconstitutional. "A Muslim should not be subjected to a punishment more severe than would be imposed on other Nigerians for the same offence. Equality before the law means that Muslims should not be discriminated against," he said. But a number of state governors, who have introduced Sharia, and Muslim clerics, dismissed Agabi’s comments, insisting that Sharia was the right of all Muslims. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, of 120 million people, is almost evenly divided between a largely Muslim north and a predominantly Christian south. The country has witnessed outbursts of sectarian violence since the application of strict Sharia began in a number of northern states. At least 2000 people were killed in the northern city of Kaduna early in 2000, in clashes between Christians and Muslims over plans to introduce Sharia in the state. Though a born-again Christian, Obasanjo had till now been reluctant to intervene over the introduction of the Sharia code, citing Nigeria's federal constitution under which states could make their laws. But the new position Agabi articulated marked a significant departure from the former stand, which may put the federal government on a collision course with pro-Sharia governors who have threatened defiance.