Gambia-l,
I wonder where these Nigerian Sharia Judges get the mandate from to stone
this woman. I am told by an Islamic scholar that there is no stoning
mentioned in the koran. Moreover, since sharia is a complete social system
there are conditions that has to be met before one can implement it. For
example, the justice, social welfare and other institutions have to first
be in place. You cannot punish somebody you have never cared for and never
educated. Have they paid a single niara to educate this woman? I believe
the answer is NO. These people only seems to want to implement punishments
and penalties.

Momdou Camara

*****************
Nigerian State Washes Its Hands of Stoning Sentence

Business Day (Johannesburg)


August 27, 2002

Aminu Abubakar with Sapa
Johannesburg


No intervention expected in appeal of woman who bore child out of
wedlock

The Nigerian state government at the centre of an outcry over the
sentencing of a single mother to death by stoning said yesterday it
would not intervene in her appeal.

Last week in the northern state of Katsina, Amina Lawal lost her first
appeal against her conviction by an Islamic court for bearing a child
out of wedlock.

Confirmation of the death sentence provoked an outcry around the world
and angered President Olusegun Obasanjo's government, which has
declared Sharia, Muslim religious law, unconstitutional.

But on Monday a spokesman for Katsina state, which reintroduced Sharia
in August 2000 in defiance of the federal government, said Lawal's
fate would depend on the result of her appeal.

"Amina's case is entirely a religious
one, so nobody has the right to
meddle in it," said Ibrahim Abdullahi, spokesman for Katsina governor
Umaru Musa Yar'Adua.

"We are aware of the international protests against the sentence but
that will not make the state government interfere in the appeal
process," he said.

One of Lawal's defence lawyers, Hauwa Ibrahim, said that an appeal
would probably be lodged this week with the Katsina Sharia appeals
court.

"We will definitely challenge the upper Sharia court's ruling," she
said. "We are only waiting for the records of proceedings at the court
to file our appeal."

On Saturday Obasanjo said he would "weep for Nigeria" if Lawal's
sentence was carried out and warned that the international outcry
would damage prospects for inward investment.

But he made no offer to intervene in the case.

Attorney-general Kanu Godwin Agabi said last week that the
inco
rporation by 12 states, including Katsina, of Sharia into their
criminal codes was unconstitutional.

He said that if Lawal's appeals failed her case would be brought
before the supreme court to serve as a test of the 1999 constitution,
the basis for Nigeria's three-yearold democratic experiment.

Many observers believe that power brokers in the northern states are
exploiting the controversy over Sharia to embarrass Obasanjo, a
southern Christian, and weaken his grip on power.

But Abdullahi denied any political motive behind the case.

"The impression given is that the government is bent on executing her
which is wrong. We have no interest in the case, we allow the
judiciary to perform its work," he said.

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