Relief, belief and reprieval
October 02, 2003 Edition -1
Spared death by stoning for adultery, 32-year-old Amina Lawal told The Associated Press on Tuesday she hopes to return to her northern Nigeria Muslim village and one day remarry.
Lawal, a divorced single mother who can neither read nor write, cradled her nearly 2-year-old girl as she spoke.
She drew a red scarf repeatedly across her face during the exclusive interview, her first extended comments since an Islamic appeals court spared her what would have been Nigeria's first execution by stoning.
"The trial did not affect my faith in Islam, because I know that shariah makes room for fair trial," said Lawal, her head draped in another red scarf and body covered in the bright wax-print cloth favoured by women in northern Nigeria.
"It is a fair procedure, and so I was never afraid throughout my trial," Lawal insisted - despite what had been her frequent tears as, overwhelmed, she entered courtrooms in months of hearings.
Lawal won clemency from the Islamic appeals court, which set aside the death sentence handed down in March last year for bearing a child out of wedlock.
Lawal, who described herself as a committed Muslim, would have been the first person stoned to death since a dozen heavily Islamic states in northern Nigeria adopted Islamic law in 1999.
A panel of five judges in white turbans and black robes ruled 4-1 in Lawal's favour in the heavily politicised case, citing procedural errors and arguing she was not given "ample opportunity to defend herself".
Police and lawyers hustled Lawal away after the verdict.
While she has remained in Abuja, Nigeria's capital, since the ruling, she said she hopes to return to her Muslim community in northern Katsina state, find someone new and remarry.
"I believe everything will be fine," said Lawal, who during her trial had spoken out only to urge international rights groups not to interfere in the work of the Islamic courts.
Lawal invoked her faith in almost every phrase she utter-ed on Tuesday.
"Whoever God chooses to be my husband will be all right with me. Everything is within the knowledge of God," Lawal said.
An Islamic court convicted Lawal following the birth of her daughter two years after she divorced her husband.
Judges rejected Lawal's first appeal five months later; the man alleged to be the father of the child denied responsibility and was spared.
Prosecutors, who argued Lawal's child was living proof she committed adultery, have indicated they do not intend to pursue the case, which sharpened the divide between the largely Muslim north and heavily Christian south in Africa's most populous nation.
Lawal, gaunt and pale during an interview last year, appeared to have put on a healthy amount of weight, and seemed relaxed as she spoke.
Her child slept on her lap at times during the interview. At other times, the little girl smiled, and played with Lawal's hands and with visitors.
Lawal's case had drawn criticism from international rights groups. President Olusegun Obasanjo's government and world leaders called for Lawal to be exonerated, and Brazil offered her asylum.
Katherine Mabille, of the French group Lawyers Without Borders, said the ruling "was very good for Amina", but pointed out other cases were pending. Her organisation is assisting two Nigerians facing amputation of their hands for theft.
Critics said Islamic law was being wielded for political means in northern power clashes with Nigeria's southern-based government, and contended the poor and illit-erate - like Lawal - faced the harshest sentences.
Lawal's lead counsel, Aliyu Yawuri, contended that Nigeria's Islamic courts were making mistakes in the way they carried out Islamic law.
"For instance, a shariah court cannot proceed to adju-dicate on a matter when the accused does not have a counsel," Yawuri told a press con-ference in Abuja on Tuesday.
"Islamic law does not allow that, and one would expect the shariah court in Katsina to know that," the lawyer said.
The head of a women's rights group told the same news conference that Nigeria's Islamic court judges needed "continuous training" and better written resources on Islamic law and its interpretation.
That simple grounding "will go a long way in enhancing a better application of shariah law in Nigeria", said Saudatu Mahdi, the head of Women's Rights Advancement and Protection Alternative. - AP
