A court in northern Nigeria said today it would issue a judgement next month in the appealof a woman sentenced to death by stoning for having a child out of wedlock.
Ms Amina Lawal's case is a critical test for Nigeria's system of Islamic or sharia law which sparked riots when it was extended from civil law to criminal law in 12 northern statesthree years ago.
Thousands died in the violence, which pitted Christians from mainly southern ethnic groups against Muslim northerners. Ms 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. Ms Lawal's lawyer, Mr 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 favour," he said.
Wearing traditional British-style barristers' wigs, Mr Yawuri presented his case in northern Nigeria's Hausa language before five judges wearing white turbans and wrapped in black-and-goldrobes. Ms Lawal sat alone on a stone bench with her 20-month-old baby strapped to her back.
The court said it would issue a judgement on her appeal on September 25th.