An Islamic court in northern Nigeria on Wednesday threw out a death by stoning sentence against a pregnant 18-year-old girl who had been condemned for adultery.
Judge Mohammed Mustapha Umar of the Upper Shariah Court in Dass, a rural town in Bauchi state, said a lower court was wrong to have convicted Hajara Ibrahim.
The judge said it was an error to sentence Ibrahim both to death for adultery and 100 lashes of the cane — the punishment for pre-marital sex. The accused also was not given a chance to defend herself, the judge said.
"Based on these reasons, this court hereby nullifies the lower court's judgment," Umar concluded.
Ibrahim, now seven months pregnant, was convicted of adultery on Oct. 5 by an Islamic court in the remote town of Lere. A man she said was responsible for the pregnancy was freed for lack of evidence.
Her lawyer, Abubakar Suleiman appealed, saying Ibrahim was never married and, therefore, could not be guilty of adultery.
Ibrahim was one of two women sentenced to death by stoning by an Islamic court in Bauchi state over the last few months. The sentences were the first of their kind in more than a year in the mainly Muslim north, where 12 states have introduced controversial Islamic Shariah criminal codes since 1999. None of the stoning sentences have been carried out.
The second woman, 25-year-old Daso Adamu, was sentenced on Sept. 15. She says she was impregnated by one of her two ex-husbands and is appealing on the basis that the sentence was "unfair and unjust."
Under the Islamic code, sex outside wedlock is considered adultery if one of the partners is or has ever been married. If neither partner was ever married, sex outside of wedlock is condemned as fornication, punishable by whipping.
President Olusegun Obasanjo has criticized harsh sentences under Islamic law but has not moved to ban them because states are empowered to make laws in Nigeria's federal system.
The introduction of strict Islamic law in the northern states in 1999-2000 heightened ethnic and religious tensions across the country, triggering violent clashes between Christians and Muslims that left thousands dead.