Islamic court to rule on stoning appeal on 19 August

An Islamic court in Katsina State, northern Nigeria, will give its verdict on 19 August in an appeal filed by a woman against a death sentence for adultery, officials said on Wednesday. The appeal court fixed the date on Monday in the town of Funtua, some 400 km north of the Nigerian capital, Abuja, after hearing submissions from the prosecution and defence counsels in the appeal filed by 30-year-old Amina Lawal. "Everything about the trial has been concluded, all that is now left is to hear the verdict," Musa Abdulrahman of the Katsina State judiciary told IRIN. Lawal, who is unmarried, was sentenced to death by stoning on 19 March by a lower sharia court after giving birth to a baby. A man she said was responsible for her pregnancy was acquitted for want of evidence. When her appeal first came up on 3 June, the presiding judge ordered the sentence suspended for 18 months, even if the appeal failed, to enable her to wean her baby. Defence lawyer Aliu Yawuri told reporters after the court session he expected Lawal’s conviction to be quashed because she had had no legal representation at the initial trial as required by law and her alleged offence was not clearly explained to her. "Giving birth is not a crime, even if adultery is," he said, arguing further that the alleged offence was committed well before Katsina State officially adopted the strict sharia legal code. Lawal was the second woman to be sentenced to death by stoning in predominantly Muslim northern Nigeria, where 12 states have adopted the Sharia over the past two years. Safiya Hussaini, given a similar sentence in Sokoto State in 2001, had her conviction quashed on the day Lawal received hers.