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Nigerian Woman Escapes Stoning Verdict

A Nigerian woman sentenced to death for having sex and giving birth out of wedlock was acquitted in March by an appeals court.

Safiya Hussaini, a mother of four, gave birth to another child a year after getting divorced. While Hussaini initially claimed a married neighbor had raped her, she later recanted and said her ex-husband was the girl's father.

In October, a Nigerian court ordered that Hussaini be stoned to death with the lower part of her body buried in sand.

According to the Religion News Service, the appellate panel rejected her conviction and death sentence on March 25, a week after the Nigerian government declared harsh religiously based criminal penalties - including amputations, beheadings and executions - to be "unconstitutional."

About a third of Nigeria's 36 states instituted shariah, or Islamic law, in 2000, leading to interfaith violence among the nation's Muslim and Christian citizens.

Hussaini was the first Nigerian to face death by stoning under the 2000 law.

Copyright Americans United for Separation of Church and State May 2002
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