Islamic Court in Nigeria Delays Woman’s Stoning

An Islamic court of appeal has ordered a stay of execution for a Nigerian woman sentenced to be stoned to death for having sex outside marriage despite her contention that she was raped, officials said Monday.

The court granted the stay to allow Safiya Hussaini, 33, a divorced mother of five, to appeal her sentence by a lower Islamic court in northwestern Sokoto state.

Hussaini said the court imposed the sentence after she asked it to force a man who she said had raped and impregnated her to pay for her infant daughter’s naming ceremony.

She said that when she was pressured by her family to charge the man with rape, the court dismissed the charges against him, citing a lack of evidence because she was the sole witness. Instead, it charged Hussaini with adultery--even though she is not married--and sentenced her to death. She was given 30 days to appeal.

The judgment has sparked international outrage and could lead to a constitutional showdown between the central government, which has threatened to intervene, and regional authorities.

“The judge said the execution should be put on hold until the final determination of the woman’s appeal by the higher court,” Sokoto state spokesman Nasirdeen Abubakar said.

Officials said Hussaini was sentenced to death because she was divorced. Had she never been married, the sentence would have been 100 lashes.

The federal government has said it will not allow the sentence to be carried out, but officials in Sokoto said the federal government had not contacted them about it.

An appeal to the Islamic court does not necessarily guarantee a stay. In January, a 17-year-old accused of having premarital sex was given 100 lashes despite her pending appeal of the sentence. She had also said she was raped.

Hussaini is the first person to be sentenced to death since regional governments introduced the strict Islamic code known as Sharia in 1999 in predominantly Muslim northern Nigeria. Sharia has been highly controversial in Nigeria, where it has been introduced in more than a third of the 36 states.