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KATSINA, Nigeria (Aug. 27) - A court in northern Nigeria said Wednesday it would issue a ruling next month in the appeal of a woman sentenced to death by stoning for having a child out of wedlock.
Amina Lawal's case is a critical test for Nigeria's system of Islamic or sharia law that 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.
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 extramarital sex. Her first attempt at an appeal was denied last August.
Lawal's lawyer, Aliyu Musa Yawuri, argued in her second appeal 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 was divorced 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 lawyers' wigs, Yawuri presented his case in northern Nigeria's Hausa language before five judges wearing white turbans and wrapped in black-and-gold robes. Lawal sat alone on a stone bench with her 20-month-old baby strapped to her back.
Yawuri also said Lawal had withdrawn a confession of guilt made in March last year.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The prosecution argued the confession could only be withdrawn if an alternative explanation for her pregnancy was submitted, which it said had not been done.
The court said it would issue a judgment on her appeal on Sept. 25.
A judge has ordered that Lawal's stoning should not be carried out until she has weaned her baby, which may not be until 2004 according to sharia law.
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.''
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.
In March last year an appeals court quashed a similar sentence on another woman after worldwide appeals for her clemency. In the northern state of Niger, another stoning sentence is being appealed by a couple, also accused of having extramarital sex. A hearing on the case due earlier this month was postponed until a yet-to-be announced date.
A stoning sentence passed on a man for allegedly raping a 9-year-old girl was revoked this month on grounds of insanity.
Amina Lawal's case is a critical test for Nigeria's system of Islamic or sharia law that 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.
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 extramarital sex. Her first attempt at an appeal was denied last August.
Lawal's lawyer, Aliyu Musa Yawuri, argued in her second appeal 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 was divorced 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 lawyers' wigs, Yawuri presented his case in northern Nigeria's Hausa language before five judges wearing white turbans and wrapped in black-and-gold robes. Lawal sat alone on a stone bench with her 20-month-old baby strapped to her back.
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.
The court said it would issue a judgment on her appeal on Sept. 25.
A judge has ordered that Lawal's stoning should not be carried out until she has weaned her baby, which may not be until 2004 according to sharia law.
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.''
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.
In March last year an appeals court quashed a similar sentence on another woman after worldwide appeals for her clemency. In the northern state of Niger, another stoning sentence is being appealed by a couple, also accused of having extramarital sex. A hearing on the case due earlier this month was postponed until a yet-to-be announced date.
A stoning sentence passed on a man for allegedly raping a 9-year-old girl was revoked this month on grounds of insanity.
