Vanguard  Lagos

Sharia Court Sentences Woman to Death By Stoning

IF Amina Lawal was at all tense while waiting for the judges to decide if she would live or die, she hardly showed it as she quietly breast-fed her daughter in a Sharia court in Funtua, yesterday. Little Wasila, eight months old, was Exhibit A in the prosecution's case that her mother should be stoned to death for adultery under Sharia law. Wasila made her debut as legal evidence when she was just 22 days old, so she could be forgiven for feeling relaxed yesterday during her latest day in court. Even the arrival of a dozen police clutching tear-gas grenades in both fists did little to sour the atmosphere in the upper Sharia court, where old friends greeted each other and shuffled into place on the concrete floor.

 Then the verdict was announced. To cries of approval from many of the men packing the public area, and screams of fright from the normally placid Wasila, the weeping mother was swept away from the crowd by supporters.

 Amina's case had failed. Wasila was accepted as proof that her mother, a divorcee, had indulged in extra-marital sex.

 Once Wasila is weaned, the court ordered, her 30-year-old mother is to be taken to a public place, buried up to her neck and stoned to death.

 Until the moment of the verdict, the idea that the soft-spoken, grey-bearded figures in Funtua's dusty, blue-walled court were discussing the possibility of such a violent end had seemed surreal.

 Wasila had played on the laps of press photographers and a shyly smiling Amina had posed with her step-father, Idris Sani for pictures before the hall.

 When the judge, Aliyu Abdullahi began his summing up it was clear he was leaning towards the prosecution case, and ready to dismiss out of hand the defence's carefully worded procedural quibbles.

 But proceedings continued with such a polite air that the verdict was still a surprise when it came. A swelling cry of "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest) went up, and Sergeant Abubakar Bazza leant forward from his post with a gas grenade and a table-leg truncheon at the ready, but there was no great disturbance.

 Press, lawyers and public poured out into bright African sunshine as Amina was hurried to a waiting car by her lawyer, still clutching a now distressed Wasila.

 In a moment she was gone, and the crowd's cheerful curiosity turned instead to the television crews and the reporters, with their unfamiliar satellite phones and laptops.

 "The judgement was right since it was passed in accordance with Islamic law. I'm very happy with it," declared 27-year-old Sani Musa, a Funtua civil servant, reflecting what was apparently the majority view.

 "The judge's proofs were stronger than those of the defence," chimed in Labaran Kabir, 25, one of many young men who had taken yesterday morning off to squeeze into the bare courtroom and watch Sharia law in action.

 Amina's case will be taken to appeal, so it remains to be seen whether these same young men will be ready to pick up the first stone if and when the young mother is led out to face death. The defence recovered quickly from its disappointment and, having been granted 30 days to appeal, took immediate advantage of the offer and sped off to lodge the necessary papers. Wasila will have more days in court. Next time she may be more nervous.

Sharia: Woman to Die By Stoning

 August 20, 2002

Jare Ilelaboye

Katsina With Agency Report

 A Sharia Appeal Court yesterday in Funtua, Katsina State, confirmed the death sentence by stoning earlier passed on 30-year-old Amina Lawal for having a child out of wedlock. The court ordered her to be executed once her child is weaned.

 Her legal team, however, promised to immediately appeal. They have 30 days to so do.

 If they fail, Amina could become the first Nigerian to be stoned to death since Zamfara State, followd by 11 other states in the North reintroduced Sharia penal code two years ago.

 Amina's team of Abuja-based lawyers and rights campaigners had argued that her conviction was unfair, that her confession had been retracted and that she had never understood the case against her.

 But a four-judge panel meeting at the upper Sharia court in Funtua, dismissed their arguments.

 "Based on proofs derived through our investigations and through Islamic books I, Aliyu Abdullahi, and my three assistants hereby uphold the judgment passed by Bakori Sharia court," the presiding judge said.

 "We uphold your conviction of death by stoning as prescribed by the Sharia. This judgment will be carried out as soon as your baby is weaned," he told Amina, who sat before the bench cradling her eight-month-old daughter.

 A cry of "Allahu Akbar" (God is great) resounded around the packed courtroom as Amina, a village housewife dressed in a bright red dress and deep purple open-faced veil, burst into tears.

 At an earlier hearing, Amina had said she was confident she would be cleared now that she had high-powered lawyers behind her. At her first trial in January, she had no representation.

 The verdict also shocked her supporters, including a representative of the Federal Gover-nment, which has been opposed to the implementation of criminal aspects of Sharia but has yet to take concrete steps to stop.

 "I feel bad, I'm not happy at all. We thought they were going to discharge her," said Clara Obazele, a spokeswoman for women's affairs minister, Aisha Ismail. "We're going to appeal the judgment."

 Amina's defence lawyer, Aliyu Musa Yawuri said: "We're not satisfied with this decision, and we're going to appeal."

 Amina said nothing as she and baby Wasila were whisked away by defence lawyer, Hauwa Ibrahim, a senior member of the Nigerian Bar Association.

 Amina, a divorcee, gave birth in January and was arraigned by police at the Sharia court in Bakori.

 She told the authorities that the father of Wasila, her third child, was Yahaya Mahmud, her boyfriend of 11 months, who she said had seduced her with an offer of marriage.

 Mahmud admitted being Amina's boyfriend, but swore on the Koran that he was not the father. He was discharged. Amina was, however, tried and convicted based on her confession.

 Under Sharia's strict rules of proof, witnesses are required to convict a man of adultery, while a woman may be condemned for falling pregnant.

 "This is a young woman with a child. A woman can not be pregnant without a man, so where is that man? He deserves similar punishment. It's not fair," Obazele said.

 In Safiya Husseini's case earlier this year, the defence managed to get her acquitted on a series of technicalities, but the tactic did not work this time.

 The defence team argued that Amina had conceived before the Sharia penal code had been formally adopted in Katsina state, that she had retracted her confession and that she had not understood the charges.

 Her counsel, Mallam Aliyu Yawuri said that Amina was wrongly convicted because police have no power to charge muslims for adultery, adding that having a baby outside wedlock was no proof of adultery .

 He said the judge at Bakori Sharia court erred in law entertaining the matter in the first instance.

 Abdullahi rejected all their arguments.

 "There is no room for withdrawal of a confession made before a judge, it is unacceptable," the presiding judge declared, to renewed cries of "Allahu Akbar".

 Abdullai said the argument that the convict did not understand "Zina" is not a strong defence adding that according to Hadith, the case of adultery could be established upon the testimony of the witnesses, pregnancy and personal confession of the convict.

He said that the police have the right to prosecute muslims before Sharia courts because Hadith gave the muslim the "right to right the wrong with his hand or mouth".

 Abdullai pointed out that the birth of a child is not a proof but pregnancy and that the issue of contravention never arose because Koran and Hadith supersede a law enacted by the state House of Assembly law.

 Before the verdict, Ibrahim had expressed concern that if Amina were to be stoned to death, it could open the floodgates to dozens of similar cases across northern Nigeria.

 The defence had hoped to safeguard her life before mounting an action to challenge the legality of Sharia trials in the higher courts.

 Amina who had earlier being found guilty by the lower sharia court in Bakori.

 Amina, a mother of three, is the second woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery since 12 states in the North adopted the Islamic law over the past two years.

 The first woman, Safiya Husaini, was freed and her senteice dismissed by an appeal court in Sokoto, after vigorous protests in Europe. The sentence was dismissed on technical grounds.

 Amina twice wed after first marrying at the age of 14, is the youngest of the 13 children of a local farmer. She was divorced for the second time in June 2000.

 After her second divorce, she started a relationship with a man in December that year which lasted until last November when she gave birth to a daughter, Wasila.

 Under the strict Islamic law code in place in a dozen northern states, a woman who is divorced and subsequently has a sexual relationship with anohter man, is guilty of adultery even if he is unmarried.