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AFRICA
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Nigerian Islamic court sentences unwed mother to death
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Kano
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| 14 October 2004 10:31 |
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An Islamic court in northern Nigeria has sentenced a 29-year-old divorcee to be stoned to death for falling pregnant outside wedlock, a state government spokesperson said on Wednesday.
Mohammed Abdullahi, a spokesperson for Bauchi State, said that Hajara Ibrahim had been convicted of having had sex outside marriage, a capital offence under Muslim Sharia law, on Friday by Bauchi city's upper Sharia court.
"Hajara is now living with her family pending the time she gives birth," he said.
It was not clear whether Ibrahim intends to appeal or whether she had been represented by a lawyer in court.
"She confessed to the crime of having had an affair with one Dauda Sani who promised to marry her. But when he was arraigned in court Dauda said he had never seen her, and so he was discharged for want of evidence," he said.
Under the interpretation of Sharia in force in northern Nigeria pregnancy is sometimes taken as proof that a woman has strayed, while a confession or four reliable witnesses must be found to convict a man of the same offence.
Ibrahim and Sani (35) come from the Bauchi village of Tafewa Balewa, a local newspaper reporter said. They were tried by judge Abubakar Bello under the state Sharia penal code which was controversially introduced into law in 2001.
Since Nigeria's return to civilian rule in 1999 a dozen mainly-Muslim northern states have reintroduced Sharia principles into their penal codes for the first time since the country's independence from British colonial rule.
Sharia's harsh punishments -- adulterers are to be stoned and thieves to lose their hands -- have angered Nigerian and international rights activists and the north's Christian minority, which fears the region's "Islamisation".
More than a dozen people, mainly women, have so far been sentenced to death for extramarital sex. Some have been freed on appeal and others await news of their fate. No-one has yet been stoned.
Many lawyers, including some Muslim Nigerians, have voiced concerns over the quality of court proceedings in Sharia trials.
Inexperienced judges are often said to misapply Islamic law and to fail to uphold the rights of defendants.
Ibrahim's conviction brings to five the number of people in Bauchi under sentence of death, while 23 convicted thieves and robbers are awaiting amputation in the underdeveloped rural region's jails. - Sapa-AFP
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