Shari’ah court overturns stoning death verdict for rape

An Islamic appeal court in the northern Nigerian state of Jigawa on Tuesday overturned a sentence of death by stoning passed on a convicted rapist and ordered him sent instead to a home for the mentally ill. Sarimu Mohammed Baranda, 54, was convicted of raping a nine-year-old girl by a lower Shari’ah court in May last year. But his family launched a last-minute legal challenge just before the mandatory appeal period lapsed, pleading he was mentally ill. Baranda subsequently told the appeal court the confession that was the basis of his conviction was obtained under torture by the police. He also said he was not aware at the time death was the punishment for the offence for which he was charged. The four-member appeal panel sitting in Dutse, the Jigawa State capital, accepted his appeal. "Having reviewed all the arguments in this case, we have suspended the guilty verdict earlier passed by the lower court," said presiding judge Isa Inua Ali, as he read the unanimous judgment of the court. Baranda was to be committed to the mental institution, 80 kilometres north of Dutse until the state governor ordered his release, the judgment said. Defence counsel Mohammed Gausu told reporters outside the court he was pleased with the judgment. But the state prosecutor, Muktari Abdullahi, said he would await instructions from the state government on whether to challenge the ruling in the federal appeal court – the next appeal stage. Baranda said he was pleased to be free from the death sentence, but said he would prefer to be sent home where he could still receive treatment for his mental illness instead of a psychiatric hospital. Apart from Baranda, three people convicted of adultery are pursuing appeals against death-by-stoning sentences passed on them by Shari’ah courts in predominantly Muslim northern Nigeria, where 12 states have adopted the strict Islamic legal code in the past four years. The case of Amina Lawal, a 32-year-old mother sentenced to death for having a child out of marriage, has drawn worldwide condemnation from human rights activists. A couple in Niger State is also appealing a similar sentence. The introduction of Shari’ah law has sharply divided multi-ethnic Nigeria's 120 million population along religious lines, reinforcing mutual suspicion between the largely Christian or animist south and the Muslim north. Thousands of people have died in outbreaks of sectarian violence linked to tension from the application of Shari’ah law.