Sokot, Nigeria | Monday
AN Islamic appeal court in northern Nigeria is expected on Monday to overturn a lower court’s sentence of death-by-stoning passed against a 35-year-old woman for adultery.
The Upper Sharia Court of Sokoto State in northwest Nigeria will hold the hearing early on Monday.
The sentencing to death of Safiya Husaini here last October has provoked considerable concern within Nigeria and outrage around the world, leading to pressure on the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo.
On Saturday, leaders of the European Union, meeting at a summit in Spain, urged the court to overturn the ruling and called on the authorities to “fully respect human rights and human dignity with particular reference to women.”
Sokoto State officials said this weekend they believed it was likely the court would overturn the original ruling.
“It is up to the court to decide, in accordance with our laws. But looking at the new evidence, it seems likely they will decide this way,” said a senior state official who asked not to be named.
In an interview, Husaini said she also expects her sentence to be lifted and said that she intends then to re-marry her first husband, Yusuf Ibrahim, who she says now is the father of her year-old child, Adama.
“From what I know now, I expect I will get justice,” Husaini said in her home village, just outside the state capital, Sokoto.
Husaini’s case was the first in which a woman was sentenced to death by stoning since 12 Nigerian states re-introduced Islamic law over the past two years.
Under the strict Islamic law code introduced in Sokoto, a woman can be found guilty of adultery, which is punishable by death by stoning, if she becomes pregnant while divorced, or if by another man than her husband while still married.
Initially, Husaini, who gave birth to her daughter Adama in February last year, said her child was fathered by a man from her village and accused him of rape, which would have let her off the charge.
But the court found no evidence of rape and in a first appeal hearing in January, she withdrew that claim and said the father was her former husband.
Under the version of Islamic law practised in Sokoto, a woman may have a child by a former husband up to seven years after they split, and the child can still be considered legitimately his, even if she has had children by other husbands in between, as was the case with Husaini.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, a Christian, said last month that he was confident Husaini’s appeal would succeed and is widely believed to have applied behind the scenes pressure to ensure it does.
Lawyers familiar with the Islamic legal system in Sokoto said this weekend the court could discharge the case and acquit Husaini, or it could ask the original court to re-try the case on the new basis of the new evidence, or it could reaffirm the conviction and sentence.
Even if the conviction and sentence are confirmed, there are two further possibilities for appeal, at a higher appeal court and at the Nigerian Supreme Court, after which the Sokoto governor could still grant clemency. – AFP