NIGERIA: A Nigerian court yesterday spared a woman from being stoned to death by overturning an Islamic court's conviction for adultery, easing pressure on the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Western governments had urged Mr Obasanjo to intervene in the case involving Ms Amina Lawal (31), who was convicted in March 2002 after having a baby outside wedlock.
The sharia judgment had divided Muslim opinion and deepened a deadly sectarian rift in the country of over 120 million, split almost evenly between Muslims and Christians.
"It is the view of this court that the judgment of the Upper Sharia Court, Funtua, was very wrong, and the appeal of Amina Lawal is hereby discharged and acquitted," judge Mr Ibrahim Maiangwa said in the Muslim court in the northern Nigerian town of Katsina.
He said the original conviction of the lower court "is not consonant with the laws of Katsina state because the police did not arrest the suspects when they committed the offence".
Ms Lawal, holding her baby, smiled as the ruling was read out to the courtroom packed with journalists, human rights lawyers and activists who had spearheaded the appeal of the illiterate woman.
"It is a victory for womanhood and humanity over certain man-made defects and mistakes," said Ms Hauwa Ibrahim, a woman activist and a member of Ms Lawal's defence team.
Women's groups had condemned what they said was the discriminatory nature of sharia rulings in cases of adultery. The male partner usually escapes injunction.
Church and Muslim leaders hailed the appeals court judges. "We are all very happy about the acquittal of Amina Lawal," the outspoken Catholic Archbishop of Lagos, Dr Anthony Olubunmi Okogie, told MISNA, the Catholic missionary news agency.
The London-based Islamic Human Rights Commission applauded the ruling, and denounced "selective and abusive" use of sharia. It said Islamic law in Nigeria "ignores corruption in high places but targets the powerless".