Late appeal against stoning sentence

Family members of a man sentenced to death by stoning after a rape conviction in the northern Nigerian state of Jigawa have initiated a late appeal to stop his execution. Mohammed Ado Baranda was sentenced to death under Shari'ah or Islamic law in May after he was convicted of raping a nine-year-old girl. He failed to challenge the sentence by the time the 30-day mandatory appeal period passed. Haruna Hashim of the Shari’ah Court of Appeal in the Jigawa State capital, Dutse, told reporters that relatives of 54-year-old Baranda had filed an appeal on Friday, in which it was claimed he suffered from mental illness. The case was being reconsidered, Hashim added. Last week a senior aide to the governor of Jigawa State, Ibrahim Turaki, said the government did not intend to interfere with execution of the court's sentence. The case had attracted less local and international condemnation than that of the 30-year-old mother, Amina Lawal, whose death sentence for adultery (after she had a baby out of wedlock) was upheld by a Shari'ah appeal court in Katsina State two weeks ago. However, the prospect of Baranda being buried up to the neck and stoned to death in public has drawn the attention of local and international human rights groups. They have condemned his trial as unfair since he had no legal representation. At least five people, including three men and two women, are facing sentences of death by stoning in northern Nigeria, where a dozen states have adopted the strict Islamic legal code since late 1999. The latest convicts are two lovers sentenced by a Shari’ah court in Niger State last week. Lawal was the second woman to receive the sentence of death by stoning, following Safiya Husseini Tunga-Tudu, who was acquitted by an appeal court in March. Another man, Yunusa Chiyawa, was sentenced to death by stoning in Bauchi State in June for eloping and having sex with the wife of a friend. The woman was acquitted after the presiding judge accepted her claims that Chiyawa had put a spell on her. The only death sentence carried out under Shari'ah law so far was the hanging in Katsina State in January of a man, Sani Rodi, who was convicted of killing a woman and her two children.