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| East/Subsaharan Africa |
| Couple due for stoning still hasn't been told... |
| 2002-10-08 |
| Two Nigerians, one a woman eight months pregnant, have still not been told that a court has sentenced them to death by stoning for having sex outside marriage, their lawyer said Tuesday. Ahmadu Ibrahim, 35, and Fatima Usman, 32, are being held in a federal jail and were not freed to attend the court hearing in August that sentenced them to death, said lawyer Hauwa Ibrahim. The couple were sentenced under Islamic law, or shariah, which allows amputations for theft or death by stoning for adultery. Prison officials will only allow family and lawyers to see the couple on the condition that they do not tell them of the death sentence, Ibrahim said. Officials did not explain why the couple could not be told, she added. They want it to be a surprise... Governments and human rights groups around the world have urged President Olusegun Obasanjo's administration to intercede. The two former lovers were charged and prosecuted by federal police despite Obasanjo's previous objections to shariah. He has condemned strict shariah punishments as unconstitutional. "But, hey! I'm just the president. Who am I to say you can't kill your fellow citizens in a barbaric manner?" |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |